For years, the EU has raised the prospect of accession to Albania and North Macedonia – whose accession process is coupled – before deciding to start negotiations in March 2020 in which the 27 member states agreed and had no preconditions. North Macedonia and Bulgaria can further rejuvenate their existing bilateral agreement, so accession negotiations could start before the end of the year. But the parties will have to agree on clear objectives and mandates and will need the support and encouragement of the German Presidency and European diplomats. Even if North Macedonia and Bulgaria manage to break the deadlock, they will still have a lot of work to do to build a bilateral relationship that is resilient to unpredictable changes in domestic politics. 3. By mutual agreement, the two sides shall organise joint celebrations of historical events and common personalities with the aim of strengthening their good neighbourly relations in the spirit of European values. Today, Bulgaria accuses North Macedonia of not abiding by this agreement, with alleged violations ranging from lack of investment in infrastructure that would better connect the two countries to the slowness of the binational historical commission set up to resolve historiographical disputes. But the heart of the Bulgarian demands lies in a challenge to the origin of the Macedonian nation and the standardized language. In 2017, a year before the « name » agreement with Greece, Skopje and Sofia signed a historic friendship treaty that was hailed by the international community as a breakthrough between the two neighbors. In raising this issue, Sofia has in fact violated the central idea of her friendship agreement with Skopje: no matter when a nation is founded and under what historical circumstances once it is established, the right to self-identification as a nation becomes a sovereign right that is not challenged by any other sovereign entity.
To settle their differences, Skopje signed a historic agreement with Athens this year that called for a change in the country`s name in exchange for Greece lifting its blockade on its neighbor`s path to NATO and EU membership. The dispute was partially settled in 1999 in a joint statement in which the two sides pledged to develop good-neighbourly relations and promote cooperation. Most importantly, the agreement was signed in two copies, one in « Bulgarian language, in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria » and the other in « Macedonian language, in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia ». This Treaty shall be without prejudice to bilateral and multilateral agreements to which the Parties are parties. (2) This contract may be amended after written agreement between the two contracting parties. The amendments shall be agreed through diplomatic channels and shall enter into force in accordance with paragraph 1 of this Article. Greece has not questioned Macedonian identity beyond the country`s name, as evidenced by the Prespa agreement itself. In the agreement, the Macedonian language is mentioned: « It is an international document sponsored by the United Nations and leaves no doubt about the identity and language of a nation. The agreement, which has also been welcomed internationally, has cemented both, » Ordanoski says. Bulgaria and North Macedonia both bear some responsibility for their dispute – they have never implemented the friendship agreement they signed in 2017, with the exception of setting up a historic commission that has become a scapegoat for severing relations. All the other stages of the agreement exist only on paper: the road that connects Sofia to Skopje still looks like a relic of the nineteenth century, and they are the only two capitals in Europe without a rail link between them. He said Bulgaria had already handed over the protocol to Skopje and that if the talks were concluded in October, the two foreign ministries would quickly sign an agreement that would bind Skopje to their realization.
Of the 195 countries on the international scene, only 11 have changed their names for various reasons. The last member to join this selected club was North Macedonia. In 2018, after a long and exhausting process, North Macedonia and Greece signed the Prespa agreement when the country was ready to be part of the EU family. However, Bulgaria would not allow this inclusion without solving the subsequent linguistic problem. A long-standing dispute over Greece`s name had previously prevented the country from joining NATO and starting its EU accession process. This dispute was finally settled in 2018 with the signing of the so-called Prespa agreement, in which Macedonia agreed to change the country`s name to North Macedonia. The deal was equally unpopular in Greece and Macedonia, but two years later, in 2020, the Western Balkan country joined NATO. At the Western Balkans summit, Bulgarian President Rumen Radev announced that the parties were working on a bilateral protocol with six main points of cooperation. This time, however, language was only part of the requirements. Speaking on a panel on TRT World`s « Across the Balkans » that focused on the disagreement, political analyst Petar Arsovski said that « the content of the changes is not so much at the heart of the dispute. » Rather, it was the political will to open negotiations. On the question of historiography – yes, there are differences and yes, they need to be addressed. But it should be noted that the commissions responsible for settling intercultural and historical disagreements in Europe have been working for decades to resolve them.
For example, the German-French Textbook Commission has been active since the 1980s; German-Polish – since the 1970s. The Bulgarian-Macedonian Commission started its work only a year ago and had to suspend its activities this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. An example mentioned above is the use of the term « Bulgarian fascist occupying power » when it comes to Bulgaria`s occupation of present-day North Macedonia during World War II. Sofia claims that the term instills hatred. Regarding the administrative, police and other pressures allegedly exerted on Bulgarian citizens and self-identified North Macedonian citizens in North Macedonia, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry said on 4th September. August 2009 that « Bulgaria will examine the approach of the Macedonian side in such cases as one of the criteria on the basis of which the country is willing to make the changes that would allow the European Union to integrate the Republic of North Macedonia ». [19] As history has shown, the outbreak of small crises in the Balkans has never led to a good foreign policy in the EU`s neighbourhood. A friendship treaty in 2017 renewed the good relations between the two sides. Subsequently, Bulgaria helped the Republic of Macedonia to meet the criteria for accession to the European Union and accession to NATO.
« And just as we are finally solving the problem with the Prespa agreement, which is greeted with a lot of international praise and promises of EU accession negotiations, another mountain is emerging, » he said. Bulgaria has proposed to sign a treaty (based on the 1999 Joint Declaration) guaranteeing good neighbourly relations between the two countries in order to allow Bulgaria to support North Macedonia`s accession to the European Union. [20] [21] 2. The Joint Governmental Commission shall meet regularly once a year to review the effective implementation of this Treaty, the application of measures to improve its bilateral cooperation and the settlement of issues which may arise in the context of the implementation of this Treaty. .
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