With 170 votes “for”, 36 "against" and 21 abstained, the Bulgarian National Assembly has given the green light to the start of EU accession negotiations with North Macedonia. The document voted sets down the following conditions:

-  Effective implementation of the 2017 agreement of friendship, goodneighbourhood and cooperation;

-  Guaranteeing the rights of Bulgarians in North Macedonia, which includes inserting Bulgarians into the Constitution of North Macedonia on an equal footing with the other peoples;

-  Improving the drafts of the negotiating framework and the Council conclusions with the aim of taking into account more clearly that nothing in the process of Skopje’s accession to the EU can be interpreted as recognition, by Bulgaria, of the existence of a “Macedonian language”;

-  Guarantees that goodneighbourhood remains a horizontal criterion within the frameworks of the entire process of EU accession by North Macedonia.

• National Assembly Foreign Affairs Committee adopted the project of Democratic Bulgaria on North Macedonia