Eurasia Press & News
As Bulgaria’s blockade on North Macedonia’s EU accession talks threatens to undo all the progress the two neighbours have made, three former North Macedonia foreign ministers offer their own ideas on ways out of the imbroglio.
“If I had a formula to get out of this dead end, I would surely win a Nobel Prize,” a former foreign minister of North Macedonia told BIRN, referencing the challenge the country faces after Bulgaria on Tuesday blocked the start of its EU accession talks.
The Bulgarian veto threatens to revert relations between Skopje and Sofia to the period before March 1999, when the two estranged countries – then led by Ljubco Georgievski and Ivan Kostov – made the first steps towards relaxing tensions by signing a Declaration for Good Neighbourly Relations.
On May 24 that year, Georgievski and Kostov led delegations from both countries to the St Clement Church in Rome for a joint commemoration before the tomb of St Cyril’s, celebrated in both countries as one of the founders of Slavic literacy.
Eighteen long years passed after the 1999 declaration before both countries in 2017 signed a Bilateral Friendship Accord.
Fears are now growing that many more years may yet pass at a standstill, if reason fails to prevail and a solution for the current blockade is not found.
Three former foreign ministers of North Macedonia told BIRN about the future perspectives, one of them suggesting that the sheer number of topics opened recently by Bulgaria – some not linked to the sensitive issues of identity, language or history – might ironically offer a way out of this imbroglio.
As bad, or worse, than ‘name’ dispute with Greece
Denko Maleski, North Macedonia’s first foreign minister from the time when the country declared independence from former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, believes that if there is no solution by the end of the year, under the German EU presidency, the country risks being stuck in a decades-long dispute that could be even more damaging than the “name” dispute with Greece.
That left the country on the doorstep of NATO and the EU for years before the two sides stuck a historic deal in 2018.
He said the wars in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the “name” dispute with Greece have shown how difficult it is to settle disputes between Balkan states if hot topics are not addressed swiftly.
“There’s no reason for optimism when it comes to the latest dispute with Bulgaria, on the contrary. The identity issue is so sensitive and so susceptible to political manipulation by the parties in both countries, that, if we get stuck in, we will need a lot of time to get out,” Maleski warned.
“We must make every effort with the support of European allies to break the deadlock we are in,” he added.
“If we do not find a smart solution to start negotiations with the EU next month with the help of Germany, we risk getting stuck in a decades-long dispute that will be worse than the one with Greece,” he predicted.
Since he doubts the historical differences will be resolved in the next 30 days, he believes the wisest solution may be to resolve the disputed issues with Bulgaria in parallel with the EU accession talks.
“Bulgaria, through its President [Rumen Radev], has suggested a way out option through a new chapter in the negotiating framework with the EU dedicated exclusively to Macedonian-Bulgarian relations,” he noted.
“This will meet resistance in our country because, regardless of our success in meeting the tasks of the negotiating framework, Bulgaria will be the one that can impose a veto in the end, if it is dissatisfied with the outcome of the negotiations,” Maleski conceded.
The majority of people in North Macedonia will also “not like a parallel being drawn with Kosovo and Serbia, which is conditioned by the resolution of the dispute, more precisely with [Serbia] recognizing Kosovo’s statehood before it can join the EU,” he explained.
“The dilemma in the next 30 days or more will revolve around this issue: what guarantees will Bulgaria receive as an EU Member State that the dispute will be resolved before North Macedonia joins the EU – by planting a special chapter in the Negotiating Framework, through a declaration or something similar?” the former minister asked.
In such a case, Maleski says the big dilemma will be choosing between two evils and assessing which one is the smaller; whether to accept the Bulgarian veto at the start, stay out of the EU negotiation process and solve the problem with Bulgaria “one-on-one” – and only then open negotiations with the EU; or start the EU talks first with a possible veto hanging over the country’s head at the end of the process, in several years’ time, if during that time the dispute with Bulgaria remains open.
“My opinion is that if we are excluded from the [EU] negotiations and left to ourselves, we risk being forgotten by the EU and left at the mercy of a stronger country,” he went on.
“We will, of course, resist the politics of power. In that case, it is almost certain that today’s exchange of verbal blows from both sides will turn into a policy of hostility. And then the trumpets of national homogenization will stifle the voices of reason on both sides,” Maleski concluded.
Exit plan should focus on settling ‘side’ issues first
Even now, the “trumpets” of nationalism are blowing loudly, filled with the sound of narratives geared towards mobilizing support before parliamentary elections in Bulgaria in March, and in North Macedonia’s case, licking wounds inflicted by the veto.
For that reason, another former foreign minister, Ljubomir Frckoski, says it is vital de-escalate the rhetoric on both sides.
He said that the Bulgarian veto was in fact to be expected, because Sofia had not come under much pressure not to use it. Frckoski thinks Bulgaria is now at a risk of overextending itself by issuing demands that cannot be fulfilled, so weakening its position.
Frckoski sees an exit in a set of moves that North Macedonia should take: a strong reform process in the country, robust diplomatic activity and consultations with its strategic partners on Bulgaria’s demands, as well as an internal consensus over the country’s integration path.
“The accent of our diplomacy must be put on the absurdity of the conditions set by Bulgaria, because they are impossible to meet,” he said.
“Such a precedent harms the EU itself, if a historical issue is allowed to become a political problem to be resolved with a political decree. Those absurdities should be exposed, not left to fester,” Frckoski added.
However, he believes there is room for manoeuver, and even for an exit, in that the two neighbours recently expanded the span of contested subjects beyond the topics of language, history and identity.
Bulgaria has also accused Skopje of doing nothing to speed up the construction of a planned highway and railway line towards Bulgaria, part of the Pan-European Corridor 8, and of nurturing anti-Bulgarian propaganda.
Reaching an agreement on some of these “side” issues could he a way out, Frckoski argued.
“They [the Bulgarian issues] should not be dismissed immediately. On the contrary, we need to talk about all the additional topics that open up the possibility for a compromise, like Corridor 8 and anti-Bulgarian propaganda …
“They are the exhaust valves for a compromise. By accepting these topics, we offer a way out, so that they [Bulgaria] can withdraw as well. Let’s create points for compromise, in order to save the points over which there is no compromise,” Frckoski advised.
Throughout this process, while he believes an internal political consensus within North Macedonia is necessary, it should not be based on some kind of anti-Bulgarian hysteria.
Franco-German reconciliation model could be useful
The main opposition VMRO DPMNE party in North Macedonia has used the Bulgarian veto to launch fresh attacks on Zoran Zaev’s Social Democratic-led government.
It has accused the government of betraying its promising to get the EU negotiation process started having forced the country to swallow a change of name that formed part of the deal with Greece, and despite the signing of a Friendship Accord with Sofia.
A third former foreign minister, Nikola Popski, who comes from VMRO DPMNE and served under former PM Nikola Gruevski, echoes this criticism.
“It turns out that since they [Zaev’s government] signed the [2018] agreement [with Bulgaria], relations have only gone downhill,” Poposki remarked.
“It seems like relations between Sofia and Skopje have never been worse. Shouldn’t our signatories to this agreement be asked how they managed to bring us to a point where Bulgaria is blocking us in the EU?” he asked.
“Five years ago, that same country was among the initiators of our support in the EU,” he added.
He sees a way out of the current blockade based on three key points.
“To solve the mess they have left us in, we now must first turn to Germany and France and apply their model of making clear that occupying a neighbouring country is not the same as liberation,” Poposki said, referencing Bulgaria’s complaint that North Macedonia portrays it as an occupying force during World War II.
[As an axis ally of Germany’s, Bulgaria was handed the administration of most of today’s North Macedonia.]Once this is clear, Poposki said, the two countries should apply the post-war Franco-German “model of reconciliation within the EU, not outside of it”.
Finally, both sides should accept that issues about ethnic minorities and communities “should be resolved according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, during the [EU] membership talks”.
The dilemmas about what to do next are equally pressing in neighbouring Bulgaria.
“In the current situation, Bulgarian-Macedonian relations are at a very low point, and should soon be put on an entirely new basis,” a former Bulgarian foreign minister and current MEP, Ivaylo Kalfin, told Radio Focus.
He said that by blocking the start of North Macedonia’s EU membership negotiations, Bulgaria has decided to use the big guns. “It is nice to display such weapons, but not to use them,” he commented.
“The process of North Macedonia’s accession to the EU is currently resting on logs. It remains to be decided what will happen to Albania; both countries were in a package. Whether the negotiations with Albania now start without them also starting with North Macedonia is a decision for the European Council,” Kalfin went on.
According to him, Bulgaria can now expect the development of a very angry campaign against it, which even its closest friends will stay silent about.
He believes Bulgaria must take measures promptly to prevent its isolation – and spell out exactly what it wants, so that the EU accession talks with North Macedonia can finally start.
