Mucunski From Sofia: Talks Yes, Solution No — Positions Are “Very Distant”
After meeting Velislava Petrova-Chamova in Sofia, Timco Mucunski admitted that positions remain “very distant,” while Sofia said it has no other conditions and expects the 2022 commitments to be fulfilled.
Foreign Minister Timco Mucunski, after meeting his Bulgarian counterpart Velislava Petrova-Chamova in Sofia on the sidelines of the ministerial conference on Corridor 8, said that the two sides’ positions remain “very distant” and trust is low. “If there is no dialogue, there will certainly be no solution. And dialogue itself is not a guarantee of a solution,” he said. According to reports, the two sides agreed that talks will continue on all important issues, and the Action Plan for minorities was also on the table.
Petrova-Chamova said Sofia has “no other conditions” and expects the commitments made in 2022 to be fulfilled, including the constitutional changes. Mucunski, for his part, asked for predictability and an end to the constant opening of new bilateral demands. The two sentences sound similar but mean opposite things: what one side sees as an “old commitment,” the other reads as a new demand.
The Corridor 8 conference had a more concrete tone. The agreement between Macedonia and Bulgaria on the cross-border railway tunnel entered into force in March 2026, the EU said it supports the corridor in Macedonia and Albania with €319 million, the next ministerial meeting will be held in Skopje, and a connectivity summit is announced for spring 2027. Infrastructure is getting deadlines and money; the political question, for now, has neither.
MKNews Hub · Macedonia · October 9, 2026
