The roots of our Hellenic Language

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Some of the Skopians are actually claiming Bulgarian ethnicity, mostly because they want to get in the EU. But to get Bulagarian citizenship they have to prove "bulgarian by origin" This should be somehting they can actually prove. But again another example of how they don't even really know what they are. Heres the article:

According to the 2002 census, 1,417 Macedonians claimed a Bulgarian ethnic identity. Paradoxically, during the last few years there has been around 60,000 Macedonians applying for Bulgarian citizenship and some 10,000 ethnic Macedonians have already obtained Bulgarian passports, amongst them Macedonia’s former PM Ljubco Georgievski. Bulgaria’s admission to the EU is evidently a powerful motivation factor. In order to obtain it they must sign a statement proving they are Bulgarian by origin.


SKOPJE, Macedonia: Readers browsing the back pages of Macedonia's daily newspapers often come across small ads labeled "Bulgarian Passport." They promise quick processing of applications for Bulgarian citizenship.

The companies are doing brisk business. More than 21,000 Macedonians have applied since 2001, according to the Bulgarian government. Nearly 7,000 have been awarded citizenship and thousands more seem sure of success: Ethnic Macedonians account for two-thirds of the country's population of 2 million, speak a language similar to Bulgarian and are entitled to passports.

Macedonians once looked down on Bulgaria as a lowly neighbor, but now they envy it - because Bulgaria is due to join the European Union just over a year from now.

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Originally Posted by antonio

Well, with the birth rates what they are in FYROM, soon enough it will be known as "Eastern Albania", problem solved.

Yep here is the rate and how much the Albanian/Muslim population has increased.



The process of industrialization and urbanization after the WWII that caused the population growth to decrease involved the Macedonians to a greater extent than the Muslims. Rates of increase are very high among rural Muslims: Turks and Torbesh are 2.5 times those of the Macedonian majority, while Albanians and Roma have 3 times as high. This has resulted in a significant demographic change as the Albanian population part has swelled from 8% after WWII to 25% in the 1990s. This has caused an increase in political tension and ultimately after a brief conflict forced the country to undertake reforms that decentralized the government. In 1994, Macedonian Slavs had a TFR of 2.07, while the TFR of others were - Albanian(4.10), Turkish(3.55), Roma(4.01), Serb(2.07), Vlax(1.88) and Others(3.05). The TFR by religions was - Christian (2.17,with 2.20 for Catholics and 2.06 for Orthodox), Islam (4.02) and others (2.16)