Macedonia Reviews Bulgaria Friendship Proposal

“Once our internal analysis is over we will inform the Bulgarian authorities about our position,” Ministry spokesman Petar Culev told local media.

On Tuesday, Sofia announced that it had sent neighbouring Skopje a friendship treaty intended in part to bury the hatchet of the past. It also aims to eliminate hate speech in the media in both countries.

“We see this text as grounds for a treaty with the Macedonian side. We hope that your authorities will seriously tackle this issue and that we will soon be able to start the talks for signing the document,” the spokeswoman for the Bulgarian Foreign Affairs Ministry, Vesela Cherneva, told Macedonian daily Dnevnik on Thursday.

She noted however that Bulgaria would not condition its support for Macedonia’s aspirations to enter the EU and NATO on the signing of the document.

Cherneva previously told Bulgarian media that the ongoing custody battle involving a Macedonian who holds a Bulgarian passport would be kept within the legal sphere and would not be politicized. This seemingly trivial case strained relations between Bulgaria and Macedonia last year and prompted accusations of hate speech. The trial is set to continue in Macedonia today.

Although Skopje and Sofia officially have friendly relations, the states have opposite readings of some historical events that concern both sides, which has caused tension in the past.
 
While many Bulgarian scientists argue that the ethnic origin of Macedonians is Bulgarian, Macedonian historians see the Macedonian identity as a separate ethnicity.

The two countries also disagree about minorities. Skopje claims that a considerable Macedonian minority lives in western Bulgaria while Sofia says that these people are Bulgarians. Sofia also complains that Bulgarians living in Macedonia are subject to repression.

Bulgaria and Macedonia signed a declaration of mutual understanding and cooperation back in 1999. In it both sides agreed not to take hostile action against each other nor support activists who sought to harm the peace and territorial integrity of either state.

The new draft proposal suggests increased cooperation in a number of fields, including the economy, infrastructure, energy projects and the fight against organised crime.