site.btaSDSM Chair Filipce Slams Shakeup of North Macedonia's Team in Joint Historical Commission with Bulgaria

The Chair of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), Venko Filipce, Thursday condemned the "political discrediting" of the representatives of the Republic of North Macedonia in the joint history commission with Bulgaria. In his words, the commission has the task to formulate "a common interpretation of historical facts, which has no room for politics".

At a press conference in the Skopje Parliament, Filipce said that instead of questioning the work of the commission members, politicians could help by initiating the participation of foreign experts in the work of the joint commission.

"We are not the first two countries to address such problems. Such problems have existed between Germany and Poland, Austria and Slovenia, Germany and France and these problems were solved. Involving international experts is not at all a bad idea. They will definitely help remove political influences that are not good for anybody and they can contribute with the experience from working in such committees in other countries," Filipche said.

The shakeup of North Macedonia's representatives in the commission remains a top issues in the country after Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski announced that the previous participants did not do enough to protect national interests. 

At a closed government meeting in Skopje at the beginning of the week a decision was taken to change the composition of the commission, no official information was provided and Mitskoski only said that a decision about that had indeed been taken but would not confirm or deny any of the names circulated in the press, citing the closed-door nature of the meeting. According to media reports in North Macedonia, former commission member Vanco Georgiev, who left the commission in 2021, is replacing Dragi Georgiev as chairman, and five of the seven other commission members have also been replaced. 

On Wednesday, Dragi Georgiev refused to comment on the issue, saying that all former members of the commission would come forward with a position on what is happening. An open letter published in the media Thursday says that the commission has been abused for political and partisan purposes and interests in both North Macedonia and Bulgaria, and that experts from UNESCO, the Council of Europe or the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) should be included in its work to overcome attempts at political influence. 

Petar Todorov, who was a commission member until now, told Deutsche Welle that changing the composition was not a problem. And some members, including him, have said they plan to leave the commission anyway, but "apparently the government has decided to do this act in a way that justifies the decision." 

"In fact, the government is only thinking of itself by doing this and not the public and the national interest. They have declared the commission a political, not an expert body, and expect history and science to be at the service of the government's political positions, not scientific and academic principles," said Peter Todorov. 

This position is also stated in the open letter by the dismissed members of the history commission.

Asked to comment on the open letter, North Macedonian Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said there was no need to pay more attention to the position of the former members of the commission because the decision to replace them was a political one, due to "mistrust in the commission by the government, which received support from the citizens to correct the mistakes of the previous government". According to Mickoski, "it is not a problem for OSCE representatives to be involved (in the work of the commission), but now the authorities will be involved to clarify what the fees (of its members) were and what the money was spent on".