Ekaterina Zaharieva

Four Bulgarian foreign ministers and six military officials called on political leaders to support Ukraine, including by providing it with the weapons and ammunition it needs. The call came before the NATO summit in Madrid in late June.

Saturday's opening of a Bulgarian cultural club in the North Macedonia town of Bitola named after Ivan Mihailov, a controversial 20th Century nationalist movement leader who became a Nazi collaborator, has been criticised as a threat to ongoing attempts to achieve a breakthrough in the two countries' dispute over history.

Foreign policy is absent from this election campaign. Moreover, voters practically do not ask candidates for this topic except for relations with North Macedonia.

Despite dozens of speculations about who will be GERB's presidential candidate couple, Boyko Borissov's party still has no decision on who to nominate, Club Z has learned.

Bulgaria has said it will not change its opposition to North Macedonia's accession to the EU following a meeting between Bulgaria's new caretaker Foreign Minister Svetlan Stoev and Deputy Prime Minister for Judicial Reform Ekaterina Zaharieva. 

Bulgaria is blocking Skopje due to historical and linguistic disputes. It is under growing pressure to change its stance.

Bulgaria's framework position on North Macedonia has been adopted with consensus by all political forces in parliament. We do not have the authority to change this position. The caretaker cabinet and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will do what depends on them to continue the dialogue, the new caretaker FM Svetlan Stoev said.

Bulgaria declared another Russian diplomat a 'persona non grata' and asked the Russian authorities for full assistance in investigating the explosions in Bulgarian arms depots, the destruction of physical evidence in a fire and the poisoning of three Bulgarian citizens so that the perpetrators could be identified.

We're going to have a very serious conversation with Russia's ambassador to our country, told Nova TV the outgoing Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ekaterina Zaharieva commenting on the investigation of a Russian trace in the blasts at ammo depots and defence plants in Bulgaria.

Sofia - Skopje relations have entered a new crisis following the publication last week of a report by the International Institute for the Middle East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES), a Slovenian think tank.

North Macedonia has defended its decision to stop a shipment of 920 copies of a Bulgarian book intended for a Bulgarian cultural centre in Skopje, after Bulgaria on Sunday sent a protest note. The books were not allowed across the Deve Bair border crossing between the two countries at the weekend.