site.btaForeign Minister: Smearing Sofia's Europe House with Paint Is Extremely Unpleasant Act Which Does Not Help Protect Bulgarian Interests in EU

Speaking to Bulgarian reporters here on Monday, caretaker Foreign Minister Ivan Kondov said: “We firmly condemn this act, which is not at all in the style of contemporary and democratic Bulgaria, an EU member. This is an extremely unpleasant action that does not help in the protection of our interests in the EU.” Kondov was commenting on an incident in which the Europe House in Sofia was smeared with red paint during a protest staged by the Vazrazhdane party on May 21.

According to a Facebook post by Vazrazhdane, the protest was against "Brussels's intervention in Bulgaria's internal affairs". Europe House houses the European Commission Representation and the European Parliament Liaison Office in Sofia.

Kondov also told reporters that earlier on Monday, a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Western Balkan countries discussed their work on the Common Foreign and Security Policy. EU enlargement matters were raised as well, though on principle this format does not include any discussion on the issue. Most countries expressed their positions and many said that the EU is a union of values, therefore all requirements for European integration should be observed, Kondov noted. Some foreign ministers raised the matter of faster EU enlargement, and Kondov’s position was that is it extremely important to observe all commitments, including the inclusion of Bulgarians in North Macedonia’s Constitution.

In Kondov’s words, he had a very short conversation with his counterpart of North Macedonia, who tried to explain that the statement of North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski made at the Council of Europe Summit in Reykjavik on May 17 [that the discourse used by Bulgaria towards North Macedonia is very similar to the discourse used by the Russian Federation towards Ukraine] was related to specific politicians and to Bulgaria’s policy. “I asked why in that case was Bulgaria mentioned, and not the specific politicians they had in mind,” Kondov told reporters.