To say that Bozhidar Dimitrov is not without controversy would be an understatement.

A former agent of communist-era State Security and once-member of the Supreme Party Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), Dimitrov defected from the party just before the 2009 parliament elections to join then-Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov’s party GERB, for which he won the elections in Bourgas, ahead of Ataka leader Volen Siderov.

Rumoured to be nominated as Culture Minister, Dimitrov became Minister without portfolio in Borissov’s Cabinet, with a special responsibility for Bulgarians abroad.
Half-jokingly, he told journalists on July 23 2009, that just as Borissov would govern eight million Bulgarians within the country, he, Dimitrov, would be responsible for four million Bulgarians abroad.

Expectations
In an analysis, published in late July 2009, Macedonian daily Utrinski Vesnik said that Bulgaria’s policy towards Macedonia was not expected to change much. Despite Bulgaria’s recognition of the Republic of Macedonia, the country still refused to recognise the existence of a separate Macedonian nation and a separate Macedonian language. Citing "continuous anti-Macedonian campaigns by historians and the media in Bulgaria," it was clear, the daily said, that "Borissov, whose government is supported by smaller nationalist parties, did not calm relations between the two countries."

Borissov’s choice of Dimitrov, "one of the most vocal denouncers of the Macedonian nation," Utrinski Vestnik said, as minister responsible for Bulgarians abroad, did little to show any intention to ease tension between the two countries.

10 lies
In 2003, Dimitrov, who is a renown historian and former director of Bulgaria’s National Museum of History, publised a book entitled The Ten Lies of Macedonism. The book was a polemic argument, based on historical documents, that countered an ideology of ethnic Macedonian nationalism that based itself on ethnic and cultural differences between Macedonians and Bulgarians.

The book, published in both Bulgarian and Macedonian, with the Macedonian version freely distributed online, caused considerable controversy.
In the introduction, Dimitrov writes; "what is written here, is not against Macedonia, but is intended to disclose the lies of Serb-communist rulers of Macedonia."

Dimitrov’s premise is that Macedonia as a national identity is a construct created for political reasons in 1944 and then enforced by repression under the communist regime until 1992, and with a lot of money after that date.

Mother and child
The sentencing of 23-year-old Spaska Mitrova, a Macedonian citizen with a Bulgarian passport, to three months in prison because she had refused to allow her Macedonian husband to see their child, was the start of a diplomatic row between the two countries.

In early August, Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry sent a verbal note to the chargé d’affaires of the Macedonian embassy in Sofia, saying it had evidence of systematic suppression of Macedonians who self-identified as Bulgarian and that it was determined to defend and support Bulgarians abroad. The ministry threatened to veto Macedonian European Union and Nato accession over the case.

The Macedonian reply, two days later, said both countries should "not allow citizenship and passports to be abused as an alibi in divorce issues".
Macedonian daily Vecher quoted a government spokesperson as saying that Bulgaria "could not be expected to influence the date at which Macedonia would start talks about EU accession. Bulgaria was a new member state with lots of unresolved issues."

Identity politics
In an interview with bTV on August 10, Dimitrov said the case of Mitrova was a humanitarian case, involving an ill mother and an ill child who was still being breast-fed.
The arrest of Mitrova, according to Dimitrov, had involved 20 heavily armed policemen, something he said was not even done "when a narcotics boss is arrested in Harlem or the Bronx. Or even here, when we arrest a local dealer."

"You see, this is a problem, but it is not our problem, it is theirs. Macedonia attempts to transfer its internal problems, its identity crises, to Bulgaria, Greece and Albania,"
Dimitrov said.

Saying that there was a sense among Bulgarian politicians that the country’s support for Macedonia’s EU and Nato membership should be revised, Dimitrov added "I do not determine the policy of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry."

"I deal with cultural and educational issues, issues regarding Bulgarian churches and schools and the Bulgarian media, among others," Dimitrov said.
Bulgarian media, meanwhile, said the country’s consul in Skopje could not visit Mitrova any more in August, as he had already used up the maximum allowed two visits a month.