Skopje, 22 June 2022 (MIA) – President Stevo Pendarovski believes Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski shouldn’t attend the EU-Western Balkans Summit in Brussels on Thursday, which is taking place ahead of the European Council meeting when a decision is expected on whether North Macedonia’s EU accession negotiations will start. According to Pendarovski, there’s no need for Kovachevski to go to Brussels, particularly seeing that at Monday’s meeting of the ambassadors of EU member states, the Bulgarian side has presented new demands for lifting the veto on North Macedonia. “I advise the Prime Minister not to go to Brussels. A few days ago we talked about this topic and my advice was that if this is how things were going, and if the Bulgarians submitted five new demands yesterday, then why would the Prime Minister go there just to take a picture? Imagine, an EU-Western Balkans Summit but the whole region, and we in particular, not making progress, just to take pictures,” Pendarovski said in an interview with TV24 on Tuesday. According to the President, the country has not experienced in 20 years of negotiations with Greece such humiliation and degradation as it has in the past two years by Bulgaria. Earlier on Tuesday, Open Balkan leaders Dimitar Kovachevski, Aleksandar Vučić and Edi Rama said they will make a final decision on Wednesday on whether they will go to Brussels. In addition, according to President Pendarovski, Sofia demands that Bulgarians be included not only in the preamble of the Constitution, but also in its normative part. Pendarovski said that no community in the country is included in the normative part of the Constitution, and therefore this is neither possible for Bulgarians. “Only the Macedonian people, Macedonians living outside the country’s borders, the MOC and the Islamic Religious Community are mentioned in the normative part of the Constitution now,” Pendarovski told TV24. Sofia, the President added, is not talking about “Bulgarians” but about “Macedonian Bulgarians”, something that’s a return to the “shameful thesis” of de-Bulgarianization of Macedonia. To Pendarovski it is unacceptable to include historical and language issues in the EU negotiating framework.