Skopje, 18 July 2024 (MIA) — The state is ready to adopt the constitutional changes with a delayed enforcement, which would guarantee that Bulgaria does not set any more new conditions for the country's EU membership, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Timcho Mucunski said in a TV appearance Thursday evening. 

Commenting on Bulgaria's accusations that the rights of the Bulgarian community were not upheld, FM Mucunski said the country was exemplary regarding human and minority rights, "going even beyond European standards" and dismissed the Bulgarian allegations as unfounded and unfair.

"The Bulgarians can be introduced as an ethnicity in our Constitution, together with the Croats, the Montenegrins… but this should have a delayed enforcement, until before the ratification of the protocols for the country's EU membership," Mucunski said, adding that this would guarantee that the country's efforts on the EU path will be evaluated only by objective and measurable criteria.

He said he could understand if an EU member state vetoed the country if it did not make progress in reforms, but an unfounded veto was unacceptable.

"If the Netherlands vetoes us tomorrow over a lack of reforms in the rule of law, we can understand that," he said. "But we are being told we are not progressing toward the EU because some 900 or 2,000 or 3,000 at most, members of the Bulgarian ethnic community in the country are not being incorporated [in the Constitution] without being offered a single credible argument for the violation of their rights in this same country. 

"And this is being said by a country against which there are more than 14 judgments by the European Court of Human Rights precisely for the violation of the rights of Macedonians living on the territory of Bulgaria. 

"For me as a minister, and also for the prime minister, this is unacceptable," Mucunski said. mr/