Rapporteur and MEP Waitz’s draft progress report on North Macedonia was presented before MEPs without debate and remarks following his address. As he assessed, the EU doesn’t request the alignment of history textbooks and the challenging of national identities as a condition for integration.
According to MEP Waitz, mutual respect between neighboring countries is the foundation of cooperation and good neighborly relations. Plusinfo reported that he had proposed an amendment to delete Paragraph 73 from the document, which called for “realistically achievable results” of the Historical Commission.
Behind this seemingly strictly technical procedure, the portal added, lies a political maneuver: if the amendment is passed, the text will not specifically refer to the second protocol to the Treaty of Good Neighborliness between North Macedonia and Bulgaria.
Previously, Bulgarian media had reported that the country’s President, Iotova, had received a warning from the country’s MEPs that had signaled to her that a reference concerning the work of the Commission could be removed at the last minute.
