North Macedonia’s President approves the “Black Lists” for Bulgarian Citizens and Politicians

Macedonian President Stevo Pendarovski approves the creation of "black lists" for Bulgarian citizens and politicians, reported BGNES. The statement was made during a forum organized by the Belgrade Center for Political Security on the topic: "Russian aggression against Ukraine and the new situation with EU enlargement". The former advisor to Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov - Vesela Cherneva was also present at the meeting.

The Macedonian president's comment was about the ban on Bulgarian MEP Andrey Kovachev's entry into the country on May 6, 2023. Then Kovachev had to participate in the memorial service at the Bulgarian military cemetery in Novo Selo, near Strumica. "You cannot hide behind your position and at the same time defend positions that violate public security in Macedonia," said Pendarovski and added: "Persons who have territorial claims will not enter Macedonia."

According to him, two and a half years ago, Bulgaria started making demands that have nothing to do with EU criteria.

"They started talking about the Macedonian ethnic identity, about the fact that the Macedonian language is a dialect of Bulgarian, and that in the period from 1941 to 1944 they were administrators, not occupiers. All this was sent in writing to all the ambassadors. A similar historical revisionism is absolutely unacceptable in any serious discussion. Such a thing is not acceptable for one EU member state," said the North Macedonian president.

"If we were not part of NATO and did not share all the information from this system, we would not be able to deal with all this propaganda and false news. If we compare the influence of Russian services in the region and in particular in Macedonia with that of 2018, when we...