site.btaNorth Macedonia Prime Minister Still Believes Goodneigbourliness Treaty with Bulgaria Can Be Renegotiated

Asked to comment on US Ambassador Angela Aggeler's remarks that the Prespa Agreement and the North Macedonia-EU negotiating framework cannot be renegotiated, North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said that if the agreement with Greece is a reality and part of the constitution of the Republic of North Macedonia, he sees no reason not to renegotiate the treaty with Bulgaria.

"We do not negotiate under dictates and with ultimatums. So if the Good Neighbourliness Treaty with Bulgaria could be renegotiated and the French proposal (the negotiating framework) added to it, I see no reason not to add some other proposal that would reflect the demands that the Macedonians in Bulgaria have. We cannot have a policy of double standards. If we want to change the constitution of (North) Macedonia for a few hundred of our fellow citizens who say they are part of the Bulgarian community, then we need to see what happens to the rights of the Macedonians in Bulgaria. We have to ask ourselves why (Bulgarians) want to be part of our constitution, are anyone's rights being violated?

So far we have 14 judgments of the European Court of Human Rights that the rights of Macedonians in Bulgaria have been violated, but there is not a single decision about violation of human rights of the Bulgarian community in (North) Macedonia. We respect those several hundred citizens who say they are part of the Bulgarian community here, but we also ask the Bulgarian president to respect the rights of the Macedonian community in Bulgaria," Mickoski said during the start of construction works on a kindergarten in the municipality of Butel in Skopje.

In an RFE interview on Sunday, US Ambassador to Skopje Angela Aggeler said that a renegotiation of the Prespa Agreement and the EU negotiating framework is impossible.