Under the weight of history, in 2017 the governments of Macedonia and Bulgaria signed the Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness, and Cooperation. The agreement was signed by Prime Ministers Zoran Zaev and Boyko Borissov on 1 August, and the following day, on Ilinden, the two of them—together with their government cabinets—paid tribute at the grave of Goce Delchev in Skopje. Present as well were Krasimir Karakachanov and Ekaterina Zaharieva, as well as Bujar Osmani and Nikola Dimitrov. The visit was conducted with the highest military honours, and after the joint commemoration of Delchev, Zaev stated:
“We have placed history and the past as solid foundations upon which we began building Macedonia’s Euro-Atlantic future—one that leads to a better quality of life. We listened to Delchev, who told us not to waste time. Development requires hands that are willingly extended—by citizens and by peoples who rely on and support one another, and who thus move forward together in a stable manner. We extended our hand, and hands were extended toward us. Bulgaria showed the same sense of responsibility toward our shared goals,”
Zaev said in front of the Church of St. Saviour in Skopje’s Old Bazaar.
One day earlier, in the renovated government building in Skopje—with its new neoclassical façade—Borissov responded to a journalist’s question about why they had decided to celebrate Ilinden together by saying:
“Because the holidays are shared. What are we supposed to do—fight each other? We have done that many times, and everyone has been ‘Great’—Greater Bulgaria, Greater Serbia, Greater Albania, Greater Macedonia… And because of wars, we turned the Balkans into the poorest and most backward part of Europe. We want to move forward and catch up with Germany, Austria, France… This is a holiday that we also cherish. Forgive us for celebrating it,”
Borissov said.
There is no doubt that the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness was a clear demonstration of political will in both countries to enter a process of permanently resolving the issues that had burdened their relations for decades. At the time, the Macedonian government—buoyed by the international success of the Prespa Agreement—entered the Bulgarian chapter with enthusiasm which, unfortunately, was not matched by concrete results. The acclaim brought by “Prespa” led them, somewhat recklessly, to believe that their strategic partners would shield them from Bulgarian pressure.
In journalistic circles, a narrative was circulating that Bulgaria would not be able to withstand pressure from the EU and the United States. That political misjudgment, naturally, had its cost. Almost no tangible progress was achieved in implementing the Treaty of Friendship, not even in the so-called “soft” areas such as improving cooperation in tourism, education, culture, or social policy. Nor was there progress on issues such as the injustice inflicted upon one of the doyens of Macedonism, as in the case of Vasil Ivanovski, or that of ASNOM delegate Venko Markovski. Results of this kind might have secured Macedonia a stronger position in the dispute and, certainly, greater credibility in the eyes of its strategic partners.
An additional complicating factor was the complex internal political situation faced by the third government of then-Prime Minister Borissov, which was heavily dependent on smaller coalition partners united within the so-called Patriotic Front, led by Krasimir Karakachanov, president of the Bulgarian VMRO.
Goce Delchev
“It wasn’t easy for us either, dealing with nationalists in the government,” says a high-ranking official from Borissov’s government, with whom I recently had the opportunity to speak in Sofia. “There was no real implementation of the Treaty of Friendship. We felt that your side was playing games with us. Had there been any kind of meaningful step forward, things might have unfolded differently,” adds the official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
According to him, the moment when talks began to deteriorate in Macedonian-Bulgarian relations occurred in 2018, when—under pressure to produce some progress on joint commemorations—at one of the meetings of the Joint Commission on Historical Issues, the Macedonian side proposed that Sofia and Skopje jointly mark the day when the leader of the Bulgarian Communist Party and Bulgarian prime minister, Georgi Dimitrov, handed over the remains of Goce Delchev to the then Socialist Republic of Macedonia—namely, 7 October 1946.
“To celebrate Goce Delchev on that day would be the same as accepting the celebration of betrayal,”
the interlocutor told us, speaking under the protection of anonymity.
This information was also confirmed by sources from the Macedonian side.
Boyko Borissov and Zoran Zaev at the grave of Goce Delchev, 2 August 2017 | Photo: Government of the Republic of North Macedonia
After this episode, bilateral relations entered a downward phase, influenced in part by the broader setback caused by France’s blockade of the EU enlargement process. While efforts were under way to address French demands for reform of the EU’s negotiating methodology, Bulgaria had already come forward with its own declaration, adopted by the Bulgarian Parliament. The document contained maximalist demands—including the denial of the Macedonian language—as conditions for Bulgaria’s green light to the start of accession negotiations with what was by then the Republic of North Macedonia.
This Bulgarian stance further discouraged the already modest efforts of the Macedonian side to implement the Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness, and Cooperation. In the second half of 2020, Germany assumed the rotating presidency of the EU and made serious attempts to overcome the deadlock, applying exceptional pressure on both sides. In November of the same year, the foreign ministers of Macedonia and Bulgaria, Nikola Dimitrov and Ekaterina Zaharieva, were invited to Berlin, with German diplomats seeking to help broker a solution that would unblock the process.
In Berlin, the two delegations held a lengthy meeting lasting more than five hours. According to sources who were present, the atmosphere was tense, particularly during the exchanges between the two ministers. Nevertheless, that evening a conclusion—or non-paper—was reached, to which both sides agreed. This “agreement,” however, would survive for only one night. The very next day, upon her return to Sofia and after meeting with Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, Minister Zaharieva withdrew from what had been agreed.
“At the meeting in Berlin we made progress, but it was not sufficient,”
Ekaterina Zaharieva stated after returning from Berlin and meeting with her superior.
Diplomatic sources explain this shift in position as the result of pressure from the United Patriots, led by Krasimir Karakachanov, who viewed the Macedonian–Bulgarian dispute as an opportunity for his political formation to craft a narrative that would help it retain its grip on power. Borissov, for his part, having avoided key reforms in Bulgaria’s judiciary and the fight against corruption—failures that had brought down his previous government, in which the Reformists had been coalition partners—became increasingly dependent on Karakachanov’s support.
Under these circumstances, Borissov chose to turn his back on the Germans—whose mediation had enabled the breakthrough in Berlin—and instead to accommodate Karakachanov, who saw in this issue a powerful catalyst for his “patriotic” narratives.
Karakachanov also benefited from the logistical and ideological legacy of “Zhivkovism,” while a role in this unfolding story was likewise claimed by both the then and current president, Rumen Radev. According to our sources in Sofia, Radev is not particularly resistant to influence from Moscow, especially in its efforts to obstruct EU enlargement in the Western Balkans. In this way, Borissov—and along with him Zaev—under the weight of multiple circumstances, lost control of the process, which subsequently fell into the grip of populism.
A Loaded Gun
“A Loaded Gun: National Populism in North Macedonia” is the title of an analysis published in April 2020, based on two studies conducted by the Foundation for Humanistic and Social Studies in Sofia. The first study covers the period from 1 February to 31 May 2019, while the second spans from 1 June 2019 to 24 January 2020. Both were carried out using an automated media monitoring and analysis system, SENSIKA.
The analysis identifies the sources of harmful narratives and disinformation that were active at the time, as well as their ideological frameworks and external influences. Up to that point, the study argues, Macedonian–Bulgarian relations had been moving toward greater rapprochement between the publics of the two countries.
According to the analysis, there are stark differences in the volume of propaganda present in the two states. As noted, in North Macedonia Russian propaganda and populist anti-Western discourse do exist, but in a relatively muted form. Criticism of the West is rarely directed explicitly at NATO or the EU, owing to the strong public and political consensus in favor of membership. Terms such as “Sorosoid” and overtly derogatory labels targeting the West are used infrequently—far less than in Bulgaria, where such narratives are considerably more widespread. Over the course of a single year, from early 2019 to early 2020, the SENSIKA system identified only 977 articles in the Macedonian language containing elements of these anti-Western narratives. By contrast, 4,244 such articles were identified in Bulgarian.
Professor Dimitar Vatsov, co-author of the analysis “A Loaded Gun: National Populism in North Macedonia” | Photo: personal archive, used with permission
Among other findings, the analysis points out that harmful narratives in North Macedonian media and on social networks are often reinforced and inspired by analogous structures in Bulgaria. Their origins are largely burdened by what are referred to as “UDBA-style” or “Zhivkovist” contexts. The study also detects external, direct Russian influence.
“In Macedonia there are two marginal extra-parliamentary parties that are pro-Russian and opposed to the EU and NATO. Their names—Edinstvena Makedonija (United Macedonia) and Rodina (Fatherland)—mirror those of their Russian counterparts, and their national-populist narratives correspond to all the key elements of Russian propaganda. They are promoted by several entirely anonymous online media outlets, which have already attracted thousands of followers on Facebook. It is precisely in these areas that we can suspect direct interference from Moscow. The Russian footprint, however, remains too limited to be decisive and will grow only in symbiosis with other factors,”
the study states.
Similar—and in some cases identical—narratives are also identified in Bulgaria, where Russian influence represents a more significant factor.
The convergence of narratives shaped by direct Russian influence with those that are more indigenous and traditional activates a downward spiral in which the quality of Macedonian–Bulgarian relations begins to erode. During the periods covered by the research, there was a noticeable increase in the publication of opinion columns in Macedonia authored by intellectuals who appear to have been part of the cultural elite during the socialist era.
“These intellectuals tend to have belonged to the cultural elite under socialism—poets, journalists, diplomats, and the like. Having been partially marginalized, they now position themselves as advocates of an anti-globalist restoration. Naturally, there are also younger figures among them. However, as in Bulgaria, the social downgrading of socialist-era cultural elites is one of the main drivers behind the spread of disinformation and propaganda,”
the study notes.
As an illustration of this narrative, the research highlights excerpts from articles published in what remains of the former state publishing giant Nova Makedonija, now reduced to a private, significantly diminished version of the country’s first daily newspaper, which nevertheless continues to be printed.
Particularly noteworthy is the segment of the 2019 research addressing the period when Macedonia’s integration process became collateral damage of the EU enlargement blockade, following French President Emmanuel Macron’s demand for reform of the accession methodology. According to the analysis, disappointment over the blockade in Macedonian media was not expressed through hostile language toward France, but rather through criticism directed at the government in Skopje.
Professor Dimitar Vatsov, one of the authors of the study, explains that these narratives often align with Russian propaganda, which is based on criticizing Western values and disseminating disinformation about their quality, with the aim of stoking anti-European sentiment. Diverting Macedonia—and the Western Balkans as a whole—from the European integration process is one of the central objectives of Russian foreign policy, pursued through a wide array of propaganda tools and disinformation networks.
This trajectory of developments has struck at the very core of mutual misunderstanding and division in the competing portrayals of the dispute over the identity of Goce Delchev, a revolutionary hero in the official historiographies of both Bulgaria and Macedonia. In stark contrast to what is perhaps his most famous thought, the authorities in Skopje and Sofia have come to understand the world not as a space for cultural competition, but as a field in which to sow hatred and anger among peoples—harvests from which, thus far, the sole loser has been the Macedonian people.
