European Parliament this afternoon with 508 votes "for" and 56 "against" adopted the Progress Report on Northern Macedonia to the European Parliament Rapporteur, the Bulgarian MEP Ilhan Kucuk, while adopting some of the controversial amendments.

The report welcomes the country's reform progress and insists on the implementation of the Good Neighbor Agreement with Bulgaria.

MEPs approved the disputed Amendments 75b, 79 and 80, which the European Policy Institute (EPI) warned were an undermining of basic EU values.

Amendment 75b addresses historical reconciliation and "common history", which, according to the EPI, endorses pressure from Bulgaria to interpret history in its own way.

Amendment 79, which has also been adopted, is seen as a pressure on the Joint Commission on Historical and Educational Affairs, which should work independently and without any political pressure.

Finally, Amendment 80 contradicts the assessment of the European Commission, as it states that there is no progress in the implementation of the Friendship Agreement between the country and Bulgaria from 2017, which is not the position of the European Commission in its last report in 2021, warned EPI.

In addition, several MEPs from the Bulgarian nationalist VMRO-Bulgarian National Movement during the debate before the vote called Northern Macedonia "genocidal against the Bulgarians."

MEP Andrej Slabakov even assessed that without the required Bulgarian changes, the membership of Northern Macedonia is equal to a "tumor for the EU".