The EU made the difficult decision on Wednesday (25 September) evening, to de-couple North Macedonia from Albania on their EU path and to start accession negotiations with Tirana, leaving Skopje behind.
We do not know why, but the EU used to group countries in their EU accession process. Bulgaria was coupled with Romania until both joined in 2007, and even after both were scrutinised for progress under the rule of law, within the so-called Cooperation and Verification Mechanism. Happily, CVM is now water under the bridge.
In the same way, the EU coupled North Macedonia with Albania ten years ago, and it was widely assumed that both would move together on the accession process.
North Macedonia (then called the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) became a candidate for EU accession in 2005, fourteen years after its independence from Yugoslavia. Since then, 20 years have elapsed, and nothing has changed—the country has not started accession talks.
In comparison, Bulgaria applied for EU accession in 1995, started negotiations in 2000, and joined the EU in 2007: a total of 12 years.
We could extrapolate that if North Macedonia had progressed at the same pace as Bulgaria, it should have become an EU member in 2017.
Albania became an EU candidate much later than North Macedonia—in 2014—but it has already left Skopje behind. Next month, Albania officially starts accession talks, while North Macedonia remains in limbo.
If there is one word, to sum up what is preventing North Macedonia from advancing on its EU path, this word is nationalism.
For many years, Skopje provoked Athens by claiming large chunks of history, including Alexander the Great and the Vergina Sun as its flag, as its own.
The historic Prespa agreement of 2019 ended these tensions, with Skopje accepting the requirements of Athens. It was signed by two reformist prime ministers – North Macedonia’s Zoran Zaev and Greece’s Alexis Tsipras.
North Macedonia also made historic claims vis-a-vis Bulgaria’s medieval history and the more recent national liberation struggle of the 19th – early 20th century.
Those were to some extent defused under a “Friendship, good-neighbourly relations and cooperation” agreement between Skopje and Sofia in 2018. Work, however, is still outstanding on the implementation under various working groups.
Nationalism exists also in Bulgaria. In North Macedonia, the nationalist party is called VMRO-DPMNE. In Bulgaria, it is called VMRO. Though they claim the same historical roots from the liberation struggle of more than a century ago, they behave like cats and dogs, constantly fighting each other, but they are still similar in many ways.
The Bulgarian VMRO was a coalition partner of a government led by Boyko Borissov, which dangled a veto on North Macedonia’s EU accession path. A compromise was found when a reformist government in Sofia led by Kiril Petkov helped achieve the so-called “French compromise”, an EU agreement with Skopje that the country would change its constitution to include the Bulgarian minority, and then the accession negotiations would start.
But last May, a VMRO-DPMNE government led by Hristijan Mickoski took office, after having campaigned on an anti-French compromise ticket.
Worse, North Macedonia started confronting both its Greek and Bulgarian EU neighbours. First, the new President of North Macedonia, Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, defied Greece by not using the constitutional name “North Macedonia” during her inauguration speech. (North Macedonia added “North” to its name under the Prespa agreement.)
More recently, the government of Mickoski picked a fight with Sofia, under the pretext that the Bulgarian President’s protocol did not fly the Macedonian flag, during a recent visit of Siljanovska-Davkova in Sofia.
In fact, the visit was unofficial, as Siljanovska-Davkova came to attend an opera show, and there is no protocol requirement to fly the flag on such occasion.
The episode, however, is poisoning relations, and the Bulgarian President, Rumen Radev, hinted that the scandal was staged by powerful forces, who do not wish North Macedonia to become part of the EU.
Radev did not say it, but there are geopolitical interests. First from Serbia, which wants to keep the former Yugoslav Republic in its orbit (Serbia itself has not progressed towards the EU under its ever-more authoritarian leader Aleksandar Vučić), and second, Russia – a close ally to Serbia with an appetite to influence the broader region.
Then there are also such interests from Bulgaria’s VMRO party, which according to analysts has a hidden pro-Russian agenda – just as VMRO-DPMNE.
To cut a long story short, North Macedonia has got into the EU deep freeze because of geopolitical interests, which successfully pursue their goals by manipulating local nationalisms. Doing this in the Balkans is easy as pie.
The Roundup
Amid escalating tensions in the Middle East, a high-level ministerial meeting co-hosted by the EU on Thursday (26 September) is expected to push for renewed peace efforts and a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.
Experts, officials and diplomats struggle to pinpoint the cost of EU defence reform as both industry and national governments seek clarity ahead of fraught budget negotiations in the coming months.
Italy’s Minister for Enterprises, Adolfo Urso, will seek a broad alliance with other industry ministers on Thursday (26 September) to move the review of car reduction targets forward but also shield the EU’s 2035 zero-CO2 emissions goal.
The European Union’s decision to name a Hungarian as its health commissioner has raised eyebrows in his country, which itself has crumbling hospitals and no health minister.
The European Union’s decision to name a Hungarian as its health commissioner has raised eyebrows in his country, which itself has crumbling hospitals and no health minister.
In a report released on Wednesday (25 September), the European Court of Auditors (ECA) revealed that the European Commission has failed to adequately address human rights risks associated with the Emergency Trust Fund for Africa.
The Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson demanded on Wednesday (25 September) that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “immediately fire” his ambassador to the United States.
Source: euractiv.com
