Skopje, 28 July 2022 (MIA) – Stop loose interpretation of international agreements. The cooperation with Bulgaria has been active for a long time and it’s old news, but we have to go to Europe. Let’s stop treating history as a prison, and start treating it as a lesson, said Minister of Culture Bisera Kostadinovska-Stojchevska in response to a MP’s question at Thursday's Q&A session in Parliament. She pointed out that the Ministry of Culture won’t censor "a thing at any time" and that “the country needs to build a coexistence, and history shouldn’t be interpreted as hate speech”. “You are loosely interpreting the Friendship Treaty. The Ministry of Culture will not censor anything at any time. We sponsor art and creativity of a much higher category of citizens, and I hope you will not interpret this Friendship Agreement that way. Cooperation with Bulgaria has existed for a long time, we did not invent the wheel, but we must go to Europe, build coexistence. Do not twist the efforts that have been made, that the Ministry will censor and that it will put limits. The Agreement with Bulgaria states that we will exchange artists for Ilinden, Struga Evenings, Ohrid Summer... which is nothing new,” underlined Kostadinovska Stojchevska. MP Velika Stojkovska Serafimovska asked the question, who, among other things, wanted to get an answer as to what specifically "hate speech" means according to the signed Protocol with Bulgaria, and whether it stipulates censorship in the work of artists, as well as whether the works that are related to the so-called disputed periods will be forgotten and banned. Stojkovska Serafimovska pointed to the films Volchja Nokj, Istrel, Jazol, Treto Poluvreme, asking if they’d have to have their contents edited. dk/ba/