BG

PRIME MINISTER BOYKO BORISSOV MEETS BUJAR OSMANI, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA

09.10.2020

 

I very much hope that the Republic of North Macedonia will receive the necessary assurances from us and move forward along the path to accession to the European Union. The required compromises must be made, as many others have done. It is our duty to the present generation and to the generations to come to ensure that by no means shall be Republic of North Macedonia, Albania and the countries of the Western Balkans be blocked along the way to the European Union. This is what Prime Minister Boyko Borissov stated at his meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of North Macedonia Bujar Osmani.

 

In the course of the discussion, Prime Minister Borissov stressed that he was greatly concerned about the inclusion of OMO Ilinden and “a Macedonian minority” in Bulgaria into a European Parliament’s political resolution. “This is not appropriate at all at this very moment when we are looking for a compromise – both of the historians and our political partners in the Republic of North Macedonia, so as to find a solution to the issue,” the Prime Minister said further.

 

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov noted that right after today’s meeting talks should start at all levels so that a compromising solution that is satisfactory to all could be found by 10 November when Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia, as co-chairmen of the Berlin Process, will preside at the Summit. Bulgaria’s Prime Minister was firm: “You have a lot of work to do, it is a very intricate, a very fast and, at the same time, an important and needed process.”

 

“Your citizens should know that you have and have always had the strongest support in Bulgaria and that we just need to make sure that history is a bridge of friendship and closeness, and not a collapsed bridge that the Republic of North Macedonia cannot cross. Therefore, there should be no politicking with that,” Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said further at the meeting. As he put it, the prospect and the timing are extremely important and it would be a sin against history if the present political leaderships in Bulgaria and in the Republic of North Macedonia fail to work out a compromise. “Nor will the world understand us,” Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said in conclusion.