EU to put pressure on North Macedonia to start negotiations

The events of the last two weeks have unambiguously demonstrated that the problems surrounding the European integration of the Republic of North Macedonian are not in Sofia, but in Skopje. It is in Skopje where the necessary reforms have not been undertaken to overcome the dependencies and practices inherited from the Yugoslav totalitarian past.

We are appealing to you all to redirect the pressure on Bulgaria to the Republic of North Macedonia to begin and successful complete the accession negotiations with the EU. There is no Bulgarian who does not want the RNM to become a member of the EU!

This is said in an Appeal for justice in the name of the truth about the Bulgarians and the future of the Western Balkans.

The appeal was initiated by the Association of the "Descendants of Refugees and Migrants from the Territory of the Republic of North Macedonia and Friends".

“Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

We, the signatories of this Appeal, descendants of refugees and migrants from the territory of the Republic of North Macedonia (RMM) and their friends, sincerely desire the accession of RNM to the EU and support every step towards achieving this goal.

We are encouraged by the contacts and intentions at the highest governmental level between the Republic of Bulgaria (Republic of Bulgaria) and the Republic of North Macedonia aimed at intensifying economic cooperation, cultural exchange, transport links, etc., as well as the desire of our allies from the EU and NATO, the Republic of North Macedonia and Albania to start membership negotiations.

At the same time, we are alarmed by the following indisputable facts:

1. The non-fulfilment of the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighbourliness and Cooperation between the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia of 01.08.2017. This founding document has so far been violated tendentiously only by the Macedonian side.

2. It is a fact that during the census held in 2021 in the Republic of North Macedonia, 120 000 citizens were not visited in person by the censors and were counted solely by official channels. Only 3504 people were registered as

Bulgarians, although more than 120 thousand Macedonian citizens have requested and received Bulgarian passports after proving their Bulgarian national origin.

3. Over the past three years, the work of the Joint Bulgarian-Macedonian Expert Commission on Historical and Educational Issues has not yielded results due to the fault of the representatives of the Republic of North Macedonia.

4. "The Month of Macedonian Culture" in the United States, support for which has been sought even from the Congress in Washington (scheduled for September 2022), is essentially aimed at nullifying the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Macedonian Political Organization in the United States, Canada and Australia (MPO). The MPO was established in 1922 and represents our common Bulgarian cultural and historical heritage. While the socalled organization of United Macedonians will present it as "Macedonian". This event in September is organized by the pro-Yugoslav, communist "United Macedonian Diaspora" – the so-called "United Macedonians". These structures were established in the late 1950s in the United States and Canada at the initiative of the Yugoslav Communist Party, with the aim of altering the ideas and opposing the activities of authentic Macedonian patriotic organisations established in 1922. The members of the latter are Macedonian Bulgarians, who defended the common Bulgarian cause against Serbian and Yugoslav repression. To our surprise, Republican Claudia Teni, a former staff member of the Yugoslav consulate in New York, will take part in the organization of this scandal.

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

The events of the last two weeks have unambiguously demonstrated that the problems surrounding the European integration of the Republic of North Macedonian are not in Sofia, but in Skopje. It is in Skopje where the necessary reforms have not been undertaken to overcome the dependencies and practices inherited from the Yugoslav totalitarian past.

We are appealing to you all to redirect the pressure on Bulgaria to the Republic of North Macedonia to begin and successful complete the accession negotiations with the EU. There is no Bulgarian who does not want the RNM to become a member of the EU! We are not against any of its citizens who today define themselves as "Macedonians", but we do insist that the rights of those who have preserved their Bulgarian self-awareness and continue to define themselves as Bulgarians be respected! We cannot accept the falsifications related to our common Bulgarian cultural and historical heritage prior to 1945. They were imposed by the supporters of Macedonianism, itself a creation of the Comintern and the Yugoslav communist regime as a state doctrine (created in Belgrade and Moscow). This same ideology is maintained today by the politicians in the Republic of North Macedonia and their paid pseudo-academics.

• We cannot forget the consequences of the crimes related to the brutal imposition of Macedonianism on Bulgarians in the Republic of North Macedonia after 1945. In those years, in order to survive, some of them identified as Macedonians. Dissenters were killed and others expelled from their homes. Today they live in Bulgaria or elsewhere in the world. Those who openly declared their Bulgarian identity in the Republic of North Macedonia are subsequently forced to live as unwanted in their homeland and to continue to be subject to discrimination.

• We cannot accept the language of hatred towards everything Bulgarian which was used during the entire period since 1945 to the present day in the Republic of North Macedonia, embedded in their history textbooks, in mass media, in the practice of state institutions. Last month this language of hatred was used against the entire European Union.

• We cannot accept the destruction of monuments related to the past and our ancestors, while new ones with altered content are being built in their place. This is a mockery of the nationality of the deceased Bulgarians upon whom an alien identity was imposed.

• We cannot accept the falsification of key works of our common Bulgarian literary heritage or declarations that they are "Macedonian".

• We cannot accept the falsification of the life and work of our distinguished historical figures from our common past – from the Middle Ages to 1945.

• We do not accept that the Republic of North Macedonia can have a monopoly on the entire geographic region of Macedonia, parts of which are located in four countries. The North Macedonian nation and the North Macedonian language and culture are the identities of only a part of the people living in the territory of the former Yugoslav Socialist Republic of Macedonia (now the Republic of North Macedonia). This identity is not ours – it not that of the Macedonian Bulgarians – of over 1,300,000 citizens of Bulgaria with generic roots and connections to the people of Vardar, Pirin and Aegean Macedonia.

• We cannot accept that a candidate country for EU membership systematically refuses to give work to its citizens and deprive them of health care and the right to a just judicial process, only because of their selfdetermination as Bulgarians. This violates the rights of those people who are treated as' enemies' of their homeland. Bulgarians in the Republic of North Macedonia should receive constitutional guarantees as an indigenous and state-founding people.

• We cannot accept the fate of the property left by our ancestors in the Republic of North Macedonia. After being forced to emigrate, our parents left property there. Therefore, we insist that their heirs be compensated by the Government of the Republic of North Macedonia.

• We cannot accept the ban on the children of Bulgarians in the Republic of North Macedonia from studying the literary form of their mother tongue and from singing Bulgarian songs.

• We cannot accept that even today there are politicians in Skopje who do not want to open the files of the secret services! We want to make known the repressions imposed by the ideology of Macedonianism and the murders of tens of thousands of our relatives, whose only fault was that they were Bulgarians. We want collective graves to be found and honoured.

Bulgaria knows the Republic of North Macedonian best! It is for this reason that the Bulgarian side has no right to continue to turn a blind eye and allow a civilised democratic community, such as the EU, to admit a country which is upholding and will continue to uphold the same dangerous policy of Macedonianism.

It is our obligation and that of the Bulgarian state, to reveal the truth and to show fully to our allies in the EU, NATO and also to the world community the criminal nature of Macedonianism.

It is for this reason that we support the policy of the objective treatment of historical facts and the projection of human rights as set out in the framework position and the declaration ratified by the 44th National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria as a result of unprecedented political consensus. More than 80 percent of the Bulgarian people stand behind it.

This policy further developed by the decision taken by the National Assembly on the 24th June, 2022, in connection with the proposal of the French

Presidency, shows that commencement of EU membership negotiations for the RNM must be connected with the adoption of laws and implementation of convincing practical actions to guarantee an irreversible change in its entire policy against the Bulgarians and Bulgaria. Because it is a direct continuation of the vicious practices and dependencies inherited from the Yugoslav communist regime, and today it being used for the facilitation of geopolitical objectives which are alien to the people of the Balkans!

We are convinced that the Republic of North Macedonia should and can become a normal European state, a worthy member of a civilized and democratic community such as the EU, but the condition for this is to carry out real decommunization of the regime in Skopje”. /BGNES

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