Der Spiegel: Bulgaria Misuses Its Right of Veto for Nationalistic Purposes

Politics | November 19, 2020, Thursday // 12:04
Bulgaria: Der Spiegel: Bulgaria Misuses Its Right of Veto for Nationalistic Purposes



Bulgaria sets a precedent in the EU enlargement policy – it uses its own view on history in a grotesque way, as a political tool against a neighboring state, German Der Spiegel magazine writes. “Some nationalists consider Macedonians as Greeks speaking Slavonic language. Others, as southern Serbs or western Bulgarians. Throughout their short history it has never been easy for the Macedonians to be recognized as a separate nation with its own language. By this date, North Macedonia is disputed by its neighbors, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, which qualify it as a “construct” and “synthetic nation”, the German magazine writes.    

“The fact is that the ’Macedonian issue’, one of the key issues in the history of the Balkans, is still far from being studied only by historians and at present day it was proven by the Bulgarian government. It asked the neighboring North Macedonia to declare officially that the Macedonian nation has Bulgarian roots and the official language spoken in the country is a western-Bulgarian dialect. Until the Macedonian government admits it Bulgaria will not greenlight the start of EU accession negotiations, the media explains. After Hungary and Poland vetoed the EU budget, the Bulgarian blockade of North Macedonia causes new crisis in EU.

Bulgaria sets a new precedent in the Brussels’ enlargement policy – it uses its own view on history in a grotesque way, as a political tool against the neighboring state. ”The question is about much more than the 2-million strong North Macedonia which has long fulfilled all technical criteria for the start of the accession talks. The question is how the governments of some Member States misuse their right of veto in the name of their own internal nationalistic campaigns. This seriously undermines confidence in the EU in its most important neighboring region – the Western Balkans,” Der Spiegel notes.   

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