VIDEO | Kacarska: The Government alone cannot deal with and decide on the Macedonian-Bulgarian dispute

Simonida Kacarska from the Institute for European Policies
Simonida Kacarska, Institute for European Policies / Morning Briefing

In recent days, the French proposal for resolving the Macedonian-Bulgarian dispute is current. On this topic in Morning briefing we talked to Simonida Kacarska from the Institute for European Policies, who yesterday issued a critical opinion on the proposal.

Yesterday's discussion was about a document we took out in March. The discussion was scheduled last week before we knew there would be a French proposal. Persons with different opinions and views were invited to the debate. It is healthy for the society to debate, but the position of the Institute stated in our document is that premature amendments to the Constitution are not good. In our opinion, it is better to open the Constitution as late as possible, because it is obvious that the official policy has accepted the request for inclusion of the Bulgarians in the Preamble, says Kacarska.

The EC does not have expertise on minority issues, those issues are dealt with by the Council of Europe. The agreements of the Union do not refer to the domain of minority issues, which does not mean that they do not have experts, explains Kacarska and adds that as long as Bulgaria is a key actor at the table, we will have a problem on this topic.

According to Kacarska, there is room for the Government to act on what our red lines are and what to do next.

"The problem with Ukraine is now at the forefront of the Union and obviously the European troika has offered Ukraine membership in the Union, but that does not mean that our room for maneuver is over," Kacarska said.

Regarding the views that these talks should be stopped and these proposals urgently discussed in the Parliament, Kacarska said that the role of the Parliament is to do that, and in addition, a two-thirds majority should be provided in the Parliament to open the Constitution at all.

"Only the Government can deal with these issues and only the Government can decide," said Kacarska.

She says that there are several ways to conduct negotiations, and that NGOs are deprived of information from the Macedonian side, but information is obtained from the Bulgarian side.

"Through our negotiating framework, we want to limit Bulgaria's ability to constantly change positions in the future," Kacarska told the Morning Briefing, adding that civil society organizations want to share with the public the risks that may arise.

It is already half clear that the EU will give candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova, but there are EU countries that are not in the mood to do so without giving the same to the Western Balkans. "We should expect uncertainty in the next five years," Kacarska said.

Follow the whole conversation in the video

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