After Athens opposed Macedonia’s name because it was already used by one of the regions of northern Greece, the two sides reached an agreement in 2018. No one lost and no one gained anything from this solution. The solution of the problem with the Balkan neighbors did not end for Northern Macedonia after the resolution of the name dispute with Greece. A candidate country to start negotiations for EU membership since 2005, Northern Macedonia seems to have additional historical problems ongoing.
After joining NATO, in March this year, EU leaders gave North Macedonia formal approval to begin talks to join the bloc. A six-page document was sent to 26 EU countries from Sofia in August, presenting Bulgaria’s position alongside some historical issues between the two countries as claimed in the document as “ethnic and linguistic engineering that has taken place” in northern Macedonia since World War II could cause turbulence on its path to the EU.
“The accession path of the Republic of North Macedonia provides a valuable opportunity for its leadership to break with the ideological legacy and practices of communist Yugoslavia,” the Bulgarian document stated. “The enlargement process must not legitimize the ethnic and linguistic engineering that has taken place under former authoritarian regimes.”
Such claims are not new from Bulgaria, they date back to the 1950s, but Bulgaria now as a European Union member state, sees itself at an advantage and is using it in relation to Northern Macedonia. According to the official Bulgarian view of history, people of Slavic descent who live in North Macedonia are Bulgarians who speak the Bulgarian language but were brainwashed during the Josip Broz Tito’s communist regime in the former Yugoslavia and were artificially given a new “Macedonian” identity and language in the process.
During the Second World War, the Kingdom of Bulgaria was part of the Axis powers and occupied the territory of what is today North Macedonia. Macedonian history considers this period “Bulgarian fascist occupation.” But Bulgaria denies that assertion and claims that its forces liberated what it considers its brethren in the west.
As the demands of the Bulgarians are not new, in the worst case it cannot be ruled out that Bulgaria chooses the right of veto, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry announced on November 6 it had informed the European Commission that Sofia will block the so-called negotiating framework for North Macedonia, which is due to be the basis for the formal launch of EU accession talks. But European Union and USA can put pressure on Bulgaria, to take a step forward and form a compromise.
As we know that itself Bulgaria became an EU member in 2007 only thanks to a compromise and it is still below the standards set by the EU. Last year Brussels considered that Bulgaria’s progress on reforming its judiciary, fighting corruption and tackling organized crime since then had been “sufficient”, but noted room for improvement. Now what is interpreted by both Bulgaria and Northern Macedonia has zero relation to the criteria that the European Union requires for the membership and the problem with Northern Macedonia is that even if accession negotiations begin, there is still a long way to go.
However, we cannot go back in history now, and the situation must be recognized as it is currently, going back in history would not suit either the countries on the path to joining the European Union or the EU itself. Stopping of the actions taken by Bulgaria from Brussels and USA, would prevent possible future obstructions by other states towards countries that are candidates for membership in the European Union. On the other hand the enlargement process does not seem to be so easy even for the EU itself, while Montenegro, Serbia, the Republic of North Macedonia and Albania are official candidates, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are potential candidates.
