Why Bulgarians, Serbs, Turks accept census results in Macedonia

According to the results of the Statistics Ent, 3,504 Bulgarians live in northern Macedonia.

“How it is possible to have a big difference between those who have been declared Bulgarian (3.504) and the number of over 100,000 Macedonian citizens, who are equipped with Bulgarian citizenship. The object of serious analysis is the fact that 7.2% of citizens of the neighbouring state are not actively counted. According to information, data for them has been collected from a proper information base, but without emphasising their ethnic and religious affiliation”, Bulgaria's Ministry of Foreign Affairs response says.

The census results rejected the Democratic Party of Serbs and the Serb community in Macedonia on Friday. According to the State Statistics Ent, about 26 thousand Serbs or 1.3 percent live in northern Macedonia.

Even the Turkish minority has said it does not accept the results, since it claims that Turks have more than the official figures of about 75 thousand people or 3.84 per cent.

The European Commission considers that the census in northern Macedonia has been realised, according to all European standards. European Commission spokeswoman Ana Pisonero said on Friday that the “law and methodology on which preparation, organisation and implementation of the census were generally in line with relevant standards defined with the statistical legislation of the European Union”.

In northern Macedonia, based on the results released on March 30th, there are 1,836,713 or about 10 percent less than in the 2002 census. Of them 58.44 percent Macedonians and 24.3 percent Albanians.