Why a deal between North Macedonia and Bulgaria stores up trouble

IT LOOKED LIKE great news from the western Balkans. On July 19th North Macedonia, which began work on joining the European Union in 2001, finally opened accession talks. For two years its path to membership had been blocked by Bulgaria. In June France, which then held the rotating presidency of the EU Council, offered a proposal to break the deadlock. It was accepted by the parliaments of both countries. But the joy is likely to be short-lived. The fix will stymie North Macedonia’s EU membership bid, and store up trouble for other countries that hope to join. What does the deal entail, and why is it likely to fail?

Typically for the Balkans, the roots of the problem are complex. After the Ottomans were expelled from the region in 1912, the territory now known as North Macedonia was conquered by Serbia. Feeling cheated, the Bulgarians occupied it during both world wars. But in 1944 it became the Macedonian republic, part of the newly created communist country of Yugoslavia. When Yugoslavia collapsed in 1991 Greece disputed the right of the new country to call itself Macedonia, claiming that it had exclusive rights to the name (which is shared by a region in northern Greece). To end the quarrel, in 2018 the country agreed to call itself North Macedonia. Greece dropped its opposition to North Macedonia joining the EU and NATO; it joined the military alliance in 2020. But Bulgaria took up the baton in the EU that same year. Its leaders argued that the Macedonian language is merely a dialect of Bulgarian, that the Macedonian “nation” in fact comprises people who were originally Bulgarian, and that the republic was a false confection of Yugoslavia’s communist leaders. Today’s Macedonians, they claim, are stealing Bulgarian history.

The compromise proposed by France seemed to break the deadlock. But appearances can be misleading. For one, the deal officially imports the historical disputes between the countries into the EU negotiating framework. A commission of Bulgarian and Macedonian historians was already working to resolve them. But now, according to the deal, unless the Macedonians agree to their Bulgarian counterparts’ interpretation, the accession process—over which every EU member state including Bulgaria has a veto at every stage—will not move forward. One big sticking point is the identity of Goce Delchev, a revolutionary anti-Ottoman leader celebrated by both sides as a national hero.

Under the deal, North Macedonia is also supposed to change its constitution to accommodate Bulgarian demands: formal recognition of the existence of a (minute) Bulgarian minority in the country, as well as other supposed protections of minority rights. So after the symbolic opening of EU talks last month, the process immediately halted and will not resume until the constitutional changes are made. Though the Macedonian parliament has agreed, constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority, and securing that looks extremely difficult. Opinion polls in North Macedonia show that the French deal is deeply unpopular, and the opposition is proposing a referendum on it.

The agreement also sets a worrying precedent. The EU accession process normally involves assessing the strength of a candidate’s economy and its political, judicial and bureaucratic institutions. But now, in the case of North Macedonia, arcane historical disputes dating as far back as the 10th century have been embedded in the process. Croatia, an EU member, could prove equally bloody-minded towards Balkan non-members. In May the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts laid out a list of concessions that it wants the government to require of Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina if they are to join the bloc. Further down the line, Poland could make comparable demands of Ukraine.

The dispute between Bulgaria and North Macedonia was embarrassing for EU leaders. The Russian invasion of Ukraine injected new urgency into the region’s geopolitics: Ukraine was granted official EU candidacy without all the conditions that the western Balkan states have had to fulfil. That increased the bloc’s desire to find a fix. North Macedonia’s government accepted the French deal because it was desperate for some good news to shore up its flagging fortunes. As to what Bulgarian policy aims to achieve, Nikola Dimitrov, North Macedonia’s former foreign minister, says that its aim is “a second Bulgarian state”. Having failed to conquer the country in the past, Bulgaria is using its EU membership as “leverage to try to achieve that”, he says. The EU was set up to resolve disputes between its members. It now risks entrenching them. ■