Skopje, 26 October 2022 (MIA) – President Stevo Pendarovski believes that the process of constitutional revision to incorporate Bulgarians in the preamble should not be rushed because there are 14 months left until the end of the screening process. Until then, he says, we can detect and correct things regarding the required reforms, and when this process is finishing, only then we can see if the required two-thirds majority is in place. “I think that we should not stick our head forward without thinking where it might hit. I would not like to see, both as citizen and President, processes similar to those when the Prespa Agreement was adopted,” President Pendarovski told Sitel TV. His advice to the Government and the public is to not rush the process. “We have a screening process for another 14 months. I do not believe that it (constitutional changes) should be the top priority. We have so many reforms to detect and correct through the screening, so when we come to the end of this process, only then we can ask the Parliament if we have the required two-thirds majority,” says Pendarovski. The President finds the claims by the opposition that they would fight for a new negotiating framework or cancel the Prespa Agreement ridiculous. “This is a story for children. As far as my humble knowledge with international relations and negotiations goes, and there were a lot of those since the 2001 Framework Agreement, I assure you this is impossible. It is possible only if the country is called USA, France, Germany, China or Russia,” says Pendarovski. On the ‘French proposal’, he says there is a recent survey which shows a rather large drop of those who are against it. “The percentage of people who did not support the French proposal over the summer was 70 percent but now it has dropped to about 20 percent. There is still no majority in favor of the proposal but it is a fact that ever since people saw there is no threat, the percentage of those against it has dropped,” notes Pendarovski. According to him, a confirmation that the French proposal or the Bulgarian demands prior to this do not cancel the Macedonians is today’s signing of the Frontex agreement in Macedonian language. “Bulgaria’s attacks for a couple of years back focused on the Macedonian identity, there is no doubt about this. The key battle in the negotiations was to preserve the identity and the language. We have that, there is no asterisk, there is only Macedonian language,” underlines President Pendarovski.