site.btaPresident Radev: "Dialogue with Bulgaria Alone Will Speed Up North Macedonia's Progress to EU"

June 24 (BTA correspondent Nikolay Jeliazkov) -
Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said here on Thursday that North
 Macedonia's faster progress to the EU depends only on dialogue
with Bulgaria.

"Everybody should realize by now that the acceleration of the
European perspective of Bulgaria's closest neighbour depends
only on the commitment and the results of the dialogue with
Bulgaria," said Radev on his way into a two-day European Council
 meeting. "Let it be clear: the people of North Macedonia are
our brothers and we are duty-bound to help them as we have
always done. Bulgaria remains open to quick and productive
bilateral negotiations in the interest of both countries'
citizens," said the head of State.

He said that Bulgaria has succeeded in its insistence that
greenlighting the start of accession negotiations with Skopje
and Tirana be dropped from Thursday's agenda of the EU Summit.
"In the past month and a half, Bulgaria has come under
incredible pressure from its European partners to give the
go-ahead for the start of negotiations with North Macedonia at
Thursday's European Council", said the President.

Radev added that at the EU Council meeting in May he found
Bulgaria in isolation, blamed for the blocking of the start of
negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania, "The caretaker
Cabinet has made enormous efforts to catch up on the years
during which our partners never heard a meaningful reasoned
high-level Bulgarian position. That's why I held numerous
personal meetings and talks with the leaders of the European
Parliament, the European Commission, the European Council, with
presidents, prime minsters, EU commissioners, with foreign
minsters and the US Secretary of State," said Radev.

"I believe they realized that the criticism of Bulgaria is
groundless and that we have a clear position on a way out of
this problem and that we insist on reliable guarantees and
sustainable and irreversible results in bilateral relations, It
is time that we abandoned the familiarity diplomacy in front of
the cameras and focus on pragmatic solutions. Bulgaria has
proved that, despite the pressure, it is a responsible EU member
 and will not tolerate new problems being brought into the
Union," he said.
    
The President pointed out that besides resisting the pressure,
Bulgaria had managed to avoid tying the issue to a timeframe.
"The pressure will continue, but during the last month and a
half we proved that we can be open for constructive dialogue and
 initiate dialogue and its restart at the highest level. We
won't let our arms to be twisted through lobbying, media and
political pressure," Radev stressed.

"We showed that we stand by the Copenhagen criteria for EU
accession and we can't overlook the discrimination of citizens
of our neighbour just because they identify themselves as
Bulgarians. Such discrimination is at variance with the European
 values and principles. We cannot possibly say 'yes' before we
have seen sustainable mechanisms to root out the distorted
narrative and prejudice against Bulgaria from textbooks,
museums, monuments, the media and state policy. We cannot say
'yes' before we have been convinced that the Republic of North
Macedonia will not be building its identity on a theft of
Bulgarian history," the Bulgarian head of State said.  NV/PP/LG
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