Belgrade, 30 June 2022 (MIA) – Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikola Dimitrov in an interview with Belgrade’s N1 TV said the French proposal aimed to solve the dispute between North Macedonia and Bulgaria is a dangerous precedent and allows Sofia to keep blocking and blackmailing Skopje during the entire negotiation process, reports MIA’s Belgrade correspondent. According to Dimitrov, Paris allowed the bilateral issues with Bulgaria to become a part of the negotiating framework, and Sofia’s dispute concerns the Macedonian language, identity and history. “I think it only distances us from what the process should be – democratic and economic reforms, the Copenhagen criteria. What we have is a dead-end,” Dimitrov told N1. According to him, the EU needs to be persuaded to change the process, which isn't working, because the enlargement process, as it is, is not showing any results, i.e., it doesn’t reward the countries which progress, it doesn’t punish those who regress and allows a single EU member to “abuse” a candidate country. Dimitrov noted that Bulgaria’s behaviour contradicts the common European principles, which include respecting the linguistic and cultural diversity of the continent. Asked to comment on the resignation of the Bulgarian government, he said the North Macedonia question in Bulgaria serves to distract from the main issues of Bulgarian society, such as corruption and other systemic issues. “This question, since it is sensitive, is used as a distraction and I think in a way harms them as well,” said Dimitrov. According to him, it is necessary to “reset” the policy towards Sofia, and the EU should punish Bulgaria instead of rewarding it for the veto. He described the accession process of the countries in the region, saying that everyone in the Balkans is in a single bus, and they’re all trying to sit as close as possible to the driver. “But the issue is, the bus is not moving,” said Dimitrov. ad/ba/