Yotova: The OMO "Ilinden" Saga Will End Soon. Stojkov: That's a Lie
The Bulgarian president says the recommendations are implemented; the organisation says courts keep inventing new defects.
Bulgarian President Iliana Yotova, after meeting Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset, said she hopes the "saga" over OMO "Ilinden" will end soon. The organisation representing Macedonians in Bulgaria says the statement is a lie.
"We very much hope that saga will end at one of the upcoming sessions. I underlined the Bulgarian position, so he (Berset) would hear first-hand that we have implemented all their recommendations to this point," Yotova said, arguing Bulgaria had changed its registration legislation for such organisations, but that the shortcomings lay with OMO "Ilinden" itself, which she said "keeps missing some document each time."
OMO "Ilinden" co-chair Stojko Stojkov rejected the claim as untrue. "Unfortunately, it has become a habit for the Republic of Bulgaria to lie when it comes to the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria and its organisations," he said, adding that the group always files documents according to the template recommended by Bulgarian authorities themselves, only for courts to then find new, unexplained defects — 17 of them in the latest case.
The numbers behind the dispute are clear, even if the interpretation is not: of 16 European Court of Human Rights rulings over violations of the right to free association for Macedonians in Bulgaria, 11 favour OMO "Ilinden Pirin." Neither that ruling nor the other 10 have been fully implemented to date — the first was won back in 2001.
Both sides are talking about the same thing — registering an association — while blaming different causes for the failure. Until then, the "saga," as Yotova herself called it, continues.
MKNews Hub · World · September 18, 2026
