North Macedonia and the long road to the EU: a nation without a neighbor’s permit

Some nationalists take them over as Slavic-speaking Greeks. Other than southern Serbs or western Bulgarians. In their recent history, the Macedonians have never had it easy to be recognized as a nation with their own language. To this day, Macedonia is widely regarded by its neighbors Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia as a “construct” and an “artificial nation”.

The Bulgarian government is currently proving that the “Macedonian question” – one of the key political questions in the history of the Balkans – is far from being explored only by historians. It requires the neighboring country of North Macedonia to officially declare that the Macedonian nation is of Bulgarian origin and that the country’s language, Macedonian, is a dialect of western Bulgarian. As long as the North Macedonian government does not comply, Bulgaria will not consent to the start of EU accession negotiations with the Western Balkans country.

A fundamental decision on this should be made on Tuesday during a video summit of the EU European Ministers. But Bulgaria had previously announced that it would block a decision. It stayed that way. After the summit, the Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Sakhareva stated briefly that Macedonia did not meet the Bulgarian conditions.

Is Bulgaria abusing its right of veto?

After Hungary and Poland vetoed the EU budget, the Bulgarian stance on the blockade of North Macedonia brought the Union into another crisis. Bulgaria is setting a new precedent in Brussels’ enlargement policy – it grotesquely uses its view of history as a political weapon against a neighboring country.

This is about more than just North Macedonia, a country with two million inhabitants, which has long since met all the technical requirements for EU accession negotiations. It is about how governments of individual EU member states abuse their right of veto for nationalist domestic political campaigns. In doing so, they are seriously damaging the EU’s credibility in its most important neighboring region, the Western Balkans.

In an interview with SPIEGEL, the social democratic head of government in North Macedonia, Zoran Zaev, is disappointed with the Bulgarian stance, which he calls “absurd and ridiculous”. “We have done a lot in recent years to make good progress on our path to European integration,” says Zaev. “We have proven that we can behave in a European way.” He accuses Bulgaria of “demanding things in a completely un-European way” that “affect our identity and our dignity as a nation. The rest of Europe is unlikely to understand this dispute. But it contains a bitter message for the future of Europe because it affects fundamental EU values ​​such as ethnic and linguistic diversity. ”

The long way to the EU

Macedonia has been an official candidate for EU membership for fifteen years. For a long time Greece blocked the start of admission negotiations – it accused its neighbor of implicitly making territorial claims to the Greek region of the same name by using the state name Macedonia. The name dispute, however, had essentially to do with Greek domestic politics and not with alleged demands of Macedonia.

Nevertheless, the social democratic reform government under Prime Minister Zaev signed a historic agreement with Greece two years ago: It added the geographical suffix “North” to its state name – a concession made by a country to a neighbor that is unique in the world. It paved the way for the start of EU accession negotiations.

But last year it was France that blocked the start of negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania because it pushed for a reform of the EU enlargement methodology. It has now been implemented. Now the newest obstacle for North Macedonia is called Bulgaria.

The two countries signed a friendship treaty in 2017 that shifted historiographical disputes to the work of a commission of historians. It has already made significant strides on contentious issues. But a few weeks ago the Bulgarian government surprisingly presented a new catalog of demands on North Macedonia.

Compared to SPIEGEL, Zoran Zaev suspects “domestic political reasons”. He is alluding to the months of anti-corruption protests against the right-wing conservative-nationalist government under Prime Minister Boyko Borissow. The parliamentary elections will take place in Bulgaria next spring. Borissov needs a catchy topic to distract from the protests against his corrupt system, so the presumption.

For North Macedonia there should be another attempt in December to clear the way for the start of accession negotiations. However, it is uncertain whether Bulgaria will give in. Prime Minister Zaev urgently warns against depriving his country of the EU perspective. “If this motivation no longer exists, it will not only slow down the reform process in the country,” said Zaev. Then North Macedonia would also face the prospect of a new, radical nationalism which, as so often in the history of the Balkans, could turn into violence.

Icon: The mirror