Bulgaria Elects a President, and the Candidates Are Outdoing Each Other Over Who Defended the Stance on Macedonia Better: Yotova Won't Yield an Inch

In the only TV debate before the run-off, Bulgaria's presidential candidates clashed over Macedonia. Except the dispute wasn't about whether the Bulgarian position is right. It was about who deserves more credit for it.

Asked what Bulgaria's strategy should be, Iliana Yotova answered briefly: "To carry on as it has been." Then she added the line that will be remembered: in her you see a person who "will not yield a single centimetre from what has already been agreed". On relations with Skopje she claims "nothing has improved" since the signing of the Friendship Treaty, on hate speech or on what she called the persecution of people with Bulgarian roots, and she cited the case of Hristijan Pendikov as proof.

She credited the protection of the national interest to the intervention of then-President Rumen Radev. She accused former Prime Minister Kiril Petkov of being ready to give up the position. Petkov rejected the accusations and announced a legal response.

Andrey Gyurov didn't head in the opposite direction. He took a different frame. According to him, the French proposal made Bulgarian demands part of the European position and so gave Sofia more weight. He too mentions writing Bulgarians into the Macedonian Constitution as a condition for continuing the process.

So the choice is between a candidate who promises to defend the French proposal and a candidate who is proud of it. Bulgarian journalist Rumen Skrinski says that during the campaign he didn't hear either of the main pairs change the state position and that he doesn't expect any particular shift, whoever wins. In Bulgaria, he adds, the campaign failed to answer even the basic question worrying citizens: rising prices.

On the Macedonian side, Hristijan Mickoski's "two-way street" thesis stands: no further step without assurance that the problem will be closed for good. Brussels for now stays tied to the negotiating framework. The Balkans know this scene well: candidates change, statements are sharpened for domestic use, and the condition stays on the table like an old tablecloth.

What will change after 1 November? Probably the tone of the person across the table. As for whether anyone in Sofia will offer something different from the French proposal, no candidate has said so yet.