Europe magazine
First the dispute with Greece over its own name, now North Macedonia has to resolve tensions with Bulgaria. The identity of the small country and the search for it are ongoing issues.
The small western Balkan country has gotten used to quarreling with its neighbors. But now relations between Macedonians and Bulgarians are at a new low.
The Republic of North Macedonia, with around 1.8 million inhabitants, is to include the rights of the Bulgarian minority, which numbers around 3,500 people, in the constitution.
The topic has been polarizing for a long time, but tensions between the population groups have increased in recent months.
Attacks on ethnic minorities
At the end of last year, two Bulgarian political clubs in North Macedonia were attacked, and in February stones were thrown at a Macedonian organization in Balgoevgrad, Bulgaria.
A young politician who sees himself as a Bulgarian Macedonian was beaten to the point of hospitalization in North Macedonia and flown to Bulgaria at the behest of Bulgarian President Rumen Radev. Bulgaria will not tolerate violence against its citizens in North Macedonia, Radev said.
North Macedonia had to make sacrifices
Above all, the EU is pushing to get the ethnic dispute with Bulgaria under control, because EU accession negotiations have been underway since summer 2022. North Macedonia had to make sacrifices to even be considered as a candidate for EU membership.
Under massive pressure from neighboring Greece, North Macedonia changed its country name from Macedonia to North Macedonia. Greece had laid claim to the name Macedonia for historical reasons.
Nationalists against concessions
In the dispute over the inclusion of the rights of the Bulgarian minority in the constitution, the government in Skopje, led by the Social Democratic Union, is under massive internal political pressure. Because the constitutional amendment is controversial in the country.
For the necessary two-thirds majority in Parliament, votes from the opposition would also be needed. But the nationalist party VMRO DPMNE has taken a stance against the constitutional amendment, is stirring up sentiment against the Bulgarian minority and playing the neighboring peoples off against each other.
64 percent for EU membership
Marjan Ivanovski follows the current debate with concern. At a market in the center of Skopje, he sells home-grown vegetables, works 14 hours a day, all for his son, he says. Ivanovski is for constitutional amendment. His country should do everything that accelerates EU accession and think of the younger generation.
Currently, 64 percent of Macedonians support EU membership, but support is falling, by four percentage points compared to 2021. Many have the impression that their country is making sacrifices but is not being rewarded.
Farmer Ivanovski is annoyed that Bulgaria’s president is now rekindling the conflict between Bulgarians and Macedonians. “This has been Bulgarian policy since the Balkan wars, when the Bulgarians fought with the Serbs to annex Macedonia,” he says. Bulgaria has always had a tendency to want to annex Macedonia. “But now it’s becoming more obvious. They claim that the people of Macedonia are Bulgarians, but we are Macedonians.”
Attempt to tie in with historical Macedonia
The identity of the country and the search for it is a constant theme. The gigantic urban development project of Skopje 2014 was intended to strengthen Macedonian national self-esteem and establish a connection to the ancient Macedonia of Alexander the Great.
Buildings, monuments and even ships from antiquity have been copied and now shape the image of the capital. But the thickly applied kitsch devoured vast amounts of money, is already cracking and cannot hide the current problems.
GDP a fifth of the EU average
Although North Macedonia’s economic development has been positive over the past decade, per capita gross domestic product in 2021 was just a fifth of the EU average. The corona pandemic and the current economic crisis hit North Macedonia’s fragile economy hard. Inflation is around 18 percent.
Many young people are still leaving the country. Farmer Ivanovski wants to convince his son to stay. His best argument is the approaching EU membership, which he is hoping for: “I would like us to become an EU member. But it depends on us. We can’t expect the EU to feed us and the NATO to defend us. We are a hard working people but we don’t have good politicians.” Ivanovski expects politicians to solve the problems, including the conflict with Bulgaria’s neighbors.
Criticism of condition for EU accession
At the end of the year, a vote is to be taken on the constitutional amendment. Negotiations with the EU can only proceed to the next round if the Bulgarian minority is included in North Macedonia’s constitution.
Criticism of this approach comes from experts such as the historian Ulf Brunnbauer from the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg. He sees it as a “dangerous precedent” for a bilateral dispute over issues unrelated to the admission criteria to become part of the accession negotiations. This opens the door to blackmail by EU members against aspiring members.
You can see this and other reports in Europamagazin – on Sunday at 12.45 p.m. in the first.