Bulgaria lifts blockade against North Macedonia
The parliament in Sofia has voted to withdraw Bulgaria's veto against EU accession negotiations with North Macedonia. However, the compromise proposal includes conditions that have ruffled feathers in North Macedonia, including a constitutional amendment on rights for the Bulgarian minority and rules on the designation of the language spoken in the country. Bulgaria's national press is optimistic.
Letting go is a condition for partnership
Columnist Radoslav Bimbalov comments in Dnevnik:
“Macedonia has not belonged to Bulgaria for more than a century. For half of that century it was occupied with becoming like Slovenia, as Tito had promised the people of Yugoslavia. The rest of the time it wasted in a desperate search for itself. ... I am glad that at least on one side of the barricade a light of reason has finally penetrated the political hysteria. Finally we have the opportunity to remember the old truth that if you want someone to come to you, you must first let them go. Run, Macedonia! We are waiting for you.”
Many wounds that need to heal
Writer Petko Simeonov hopes that the agreement proposed by France's EU presidency will bring peace. In 24 Chasa he comments:
“The creation of the Republic of North Macedonia involved assassinations (even mass shootings and graves), prisons, camps, resettlements, physical violence and oppression, as well as the invention of a [Macedonian] alphabet and language. ... Bulgaria and the Bulgarians were silenced, documents and monuments were destroyed or reinterpreted, and an anti-Bulgarian narrative was created. I hope that with the French proposal Bulgarian politics has found a good instrument to end this aggression, so that we can finally look to the future together as friends and family.”