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Clashes between protesters and police in Skopje
Photo: GEORGI LICOVSKI / EPA
North Macedonia's government finally wants to make progress on the country's planned EU accession and will make concessions to Bulgaria in return.
This has met with criticism from the nationalist opposition party VMRO-DPMNE.
On Tuesday evening, the party called for protests - which ended in serious riots.
As the Makfax news agency reported, citing police information, 47 police officers were injured in the capital Skopje, two of them seriously.
Eleven demonstrators were arrested late Tuesday evening.
Dispute with Bulgaria continues
In the past, the government in Skopje had to make concessions to Greece - and change the country's name to North Macedonia - so that negotiations on the accession of the small Balkan country to the EU can begin soon.
The country has been an EU accession candidate since 2005, but since then neighboring countries have repeatedly blocked the start of talks.
While the name dispute with Greece has now been settled, Bulgaria is now demanding, among other things, that North Macedonia should include the Bulgarian ethnic group, which comprises around 3,500 people, in the preamble to its constitution.
Sofia has been blocking the start of accession talks for a long time with threats of a veto.
In talks with EU Council President Charles Michel on Tuesday, Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski emphasized that his country could live with the conditions for the start of accession talks.
The original Bulgarian demands had gone much further, including issues of historiography and language policy.
However, the nationalist opposition also finds the concessions that have now been made unacceptable.
According to the AP news agency, the official part of the rally was still peaceful.
Later, however, some supporters threw stones, iron objects, firebombs and firecrackers at police officers during the protest.
As they marched through the city center, they damaged parliament, government and foreign ministry buildings, the reports said.
fek/dpa/AP
