The Bulgarian National Assembly gave the green light to the start of EU accession negotiations with North Macedonia with 170 votes for and 21 abstaining. The document voted sets down the following conditions:
- Effective implementation of the agreement of friendship, goodneighbourhood and cooperation in 2017;
- 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 whole process of EU accession by North Macedonia.