site.btaGordana Siljanovska: Treaty with Bulgaria Does Not Mention Including Bulgarians in Constitution

The first steps of Gordana Siljanovska, VMRO-DMPNE presidential candidate, will be regional. She will talk with North Macedonia's neighbours about the regional policy and the expected support from them, it transpired from a debate between the two candidates in the presidential run off on May 8.

"I would like to explain that even when there is a negotiating framework, the threat of a veto is not logical" said Gordana Siljanovska during the debate with SDSM's candidate Stevo Pendarovski.

Asked what her message would be at her first meeting with Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, Siljanovska said that she will remind him that treaties can be revised and that the Goodneighbourliness and Friendship Treaty with Bulgaria has been included in the negotiating framework and that it doesn't say anything about constitutional reforms.

"Rarely a country's Constitution protects the rights of minorities like it does in North Macedonia. The Bulgarians are protected. Minorities aren't protected in Bulgaria, because they are absent from the Bulgarian Constitution. However, Bulgaria is a participating country under the Framework Convention for Protection of National Minorities and under the European Charter for  Regional and Minority Languages but it hasn't ratified it. So there is a contradiction with the Goodneigbourliness Treaty, which is part of the negotiating framework and with the commissions which can expand it and open new possibilities for a veto," she said.

"This is the rhetoric of a person who does not understand that we are a country that wants to become a member of the EU and we receive conditions from other countries, including our neighbours who are already EU members. This is rhetoric as if we are already in the EU and we are putting conditions on others who have yet to become members. The Prespa Agreement and the Ohrid Framework Agreement are also in the negotiating framework. The highest political body in the European Union, the Council of the EU, says that the change in the constitution is the political prerequisite for opening the negotiating chapters, and the negotiating framework is what will happen next (in the negotiations). So the argument cannot stand - "we are not against the European negotiating framework, but we are against the change of the constitution", Pendarovski said for his part.

In his words, the inclusion of the Bulgarians in the constitution of North Macedonia "does not destroy Macedonia, just as it does not destroy the Macedonians and thus preserves the entire Macedonian code".

"Out of the many Bulgarian demands that directly attacked the Macedonian identity three years ago and were sent in writing to the top representatives in Brussels through their ambassador, we have only come to this last demand - that the Bulgarians (be included) in the constitution, which is a huge step forward. Because all the other demands from Bulgaria were to our identity as Macedonians who speak the Macedonian language and they were rejected not only by us but by Europe. So this is a demand from Europe," Pendarovski said.