North Macedonia, Albania and the long march towards the EU

2023-08-15 08:13:00, Kosova & Bota Devin Haas

North Macedonia, Albania and the long march towards the EU

Illustrative photo

The withdrawal of an ethnic Albanian party from the North Macedonian government may finally allow the Balkan country to officially recognize the existence of a Bulgarian minority in its constitution. And it could end Skopje's dispute with Sofia and allow both North Macedonia and Albania to continue their long march towards European Union membership.

North Macedonia's path to joining international institutions has long been difficult, due to disputes with its neighbors over its language and name. Due to its designation as the "Republic of Macedonia" - or the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to international organizations - Greece opposed its membership in NATO and the European Union, until it added the geographical identifier "North" to its name.

Greece has a very close region called "Macedonia", and a population of ethnic Greeks who also identify as 'Macedonians'. Only after 2 decades of mediation by the United Nations did both countries agree to end their dispute by signing the Prespa Agreement in 2018.

FYROM became "North Macedonia", and in turn Greece allowed it to become the 30th member of NATO in early 2020 and begin the process of joining the European Union. North Macedonia has been an official candidate for EU membership since 2005.

But just when it appeared to have cleared its last hurdle to starting membership negotiations, the Bulgarian government presented a long list of demands to Skopje. "Bulgaria will not allow the integration of the Republic of North Macedonia in the EU to be accompanied by the European legitimization of an anti-Bulgarian ideology" - it is said, among other things, in Sofia's demands.

In late 2020, Bulgaria distributed a document to other EU member states, explaining its refusal to advance North Macedonia's membership. Among other things, he stated that he cannot "accept that the ongoing process of nation building in the Republic of North Macedonia is carried out through the revision of our common history, the denial of our common ethnic and linguistic roots or the baseless claims for the existence of a "Macedonian minority" in Bulgaria".

After several rounds of bilateral negotiations, and the failure of a joint commission on historical and educational issues with the mediation of the EU, France proposed in June 2022 a compromise solution: Bulgaria would unlock the admission of North Macedonia to the EU, if the constitution of North Macedonia to recognize and protect the rights of a Bulgarian ethnic minority.

Both Skopje and Sofia agreed to the deal, but it lacked the parliamentary support needed to actually change the Macedonian constitution. That was until last week.

Dispute with Bulgaria

Many Bulgarian nationalists see North Macedonia as "Western Bulgaria," a part of Bulgaria similar to how Serbian nationalists claim Kosovo and Hungarian nationalists claim Transylvania. To strengthen this position, they point to the high degree of mutual intelligibility between the Macedonian and Bulgarian languages.

In fact, Macedonian is a mutually intelligible language with varieties of Serbo-Croatian, because they are all South Slavic languages, which exist in a continuum of dialects. So the differences between language varieties accumulate in geographical distance, so widely separated varieties are less mutually intelligible than neighboring varieties.

The dividing lines between languages ??were less defined before the rise of the nation-state as a political model in the 20th century. For most of Balkan history—especially during Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman rule—many people were polyglots, that is, spoke many languages, and did not see ethnicity in the mutually exclusive terms that are common today. In the "Macedonian language" there are 29 dialects, and considerable diversity is also present with "Bulgarian". However, this nuance has escaped nationalist politicians in both countries.

But after years of deadlock between Macedonian and Bulgarian nationalists, the breakthrough on this issue has ironically come from the largest party representing North Macedonia's Albanian minority, the Democratic Union for Integration (BDI).

The Albanian factor

"Conscious of the hopes, goals and dreams of the citizens to one day become part of the big European family, we, ministers and government officials from the ranks of the DUI, resign from the functions we currently perform" - says the announcement of the DUI - in a letter addressed to the Prime Minister of North Macedonia Dimitar Kovacevski last weekend.

It stated that "the resignations will automatically come into effect the moment the opposition votes on the constitutional amendments". Constitutional amendments in North Macedonia require the support of 2/3 of the parliament.

The main opposition party, the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE, told the government that its support for the amendment recognizing a Bulgarian ethnolinguistic minority was conditional on DUI leaving the government, forming a new government coalition including opposition parties and setting a date of new early elections.

Albania's membership in the EU is linked to that of North Macedonia, so the veto of Greece and Bulgaria has hindered the progress of the Berlin Process. The leaders of Albania and North Macedonia have been increasingly vocal in expressing their impatience with this stalled process in the country.

"In addition to the political messages that come from this process, we as a region need quick, concrete benefits that will increase the economic potential of the region and narrow the gap between candidate countries for EU membership and EU member states , especially in the region of South-Eastern Europe" - Kovacevski declared in a meeting at the end of July with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.

"Today it is clear that the EU needs us, as much as we need the EU" - declared Rama. Now the way is finally opening for VMRO-DPMNE to join other parties in the Skopje parliament in voting for the constitutional amendment. Once the constitutional changes are approved, North Macedonia and Albania will be able to begin their long march towards membership in the European Union./ Adapted by CNA