site.btaPresident Radev Hails Approval by Government in Skopje of Constitutional Revisions as "Important First Step", Says It is Not Last

President Rumen Radev Wednesday hailed the approval by the government of the Republic of North Macedonia of constitutional revisions that add Bulgarians to the basic law of the country and said that is "the first very important step - and not the last one". "We finally see progress being made with providing constitutional guarantees for the equal rights of Bulgarians in the Republic of North Macedonia," the President told the press.

He underscored that it is important to also see implementation of the requirements in the two protocols that are an indivisible part of the negotiating framework for Skopje's accession to the EU.

Radev said that There Is Such a People party was the only one that backed his idea for including Bulgarians in the Constitution of the Republic of North Macedonia as a condition for the start of EU accession talks.

Also, the head of State expressed concern that the Bulgarian Government and Parliament did not react to a German Bundestag resolution concerning the EU prospects of the Republic of North Macedonia so he had to write to the European leaders to reiterate the Bulgarian position.

The Foreign Ministry in Sofia reacted to the Bundestag resolution by issuing a declaration saying that it does not change the decisions made by the EU Council in July 2022 on the European path of North Macedonia.

Radev also urged the government to make an effort to see "the next steps" being taken by Skopje: "hate speech, media, school books, museum information tags, the rehabilitation of the repressed, etc.".