During the first two weeks of July 2022, the streets of Skopje were blocked on a daily basis by thousands of people. Protests organized by the pro-Russian Levica party and the then opposition VMRO-DPMNE reached their peak on the very day when the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, addressed members of parliament and the state leadership in the Assembly.
“Europe is waiting for you,” she declared from the podium—words that were barely audible over the din created by opposition MPs, who, waving banners and hurling insults, launched an attack on what is often described as the most powerful woman in the world.
“It would not be wise to wait for a better deal than the one presented by France. Of course, that is your right—but consider how much time we have already invested to get to this point,” von der Leyen added, after Levica leader Dimitar Apasiev placed a poster bearing a large NO! on the lectern.
A few days later, the Assembly gave the green light to the so-called “French proposal” with 68 votes in favor—more precisely, to the Negotiating Framework for accession talks with the European Union proposed by the French Presidency of the Council of the EU. The only explicit precondition for opening the negotiating chapters would remain the inclusion of Bulgarians in the preamble of the Macedonian Constitution. That parliamentary session, too, unfolded amid the blaring of vuvuzelas and chants from opposition MPs of VMRO-DPMNE and Levica. After the debate and before the vote, the two parties jointly walked out of the chamber in yet another act of protest.
Despite von der Leyen’s repeated assurances that the revised French proposal recognizes the Macedonian language without any qualifications or footnotes—that there is no doubt the Macedonian language is Macedonian, and that the national identity of the Macedonians is respected—the dominant discourse in the streets, the media, and on social networks remained unchanged. Slogans continued to circulate claiming that the Macedonian language is “not a footnote,” that “there are no negotiations with fascists,” that Macedonia will not become a protectorate, and, at one point, Levica supporters even brought out an improvised guillotine.
An improvised guillotine was brought to the protests in front of the Assembly in Skopje | Photo: Facebook page of the Levica political party
A Verbal War Between Two VMRO Right Wings and Levica
Analyst Žarko Trajanovski, who at the time examined the narratives opposing the constitutional amendments, notes that some of Levica’s so-called “anti-fascist” and anti-Bulgarian propaganda narratives made no effort to conceal their underlying objective: preventing North Macedonia’s accession to the European Union.
“For example, after ECRI, in its report on North Macedonia, pointed out the prevalence of a typical anti-Bulgarian stereotype and the labeling of Bulgarians as ‘fascists,’ a Levica propagandist—using rhetoric reminiscent of Russian propaganda—attacked ECRI as an EU body for the ‘rehabilitation of fascism and Nazism,’ despite the fact that it is an institution of the Council of Europe,”
Trajanovski writes in his analysis.
On the other side of the border, Bulgaria had already entered a spiral of political instability, holding one parliamentary election after another with no clear outcome—except for the presidency of Rumen Radev, who secured a decisive electoral victory in 2021. Political actors there, not unlike those in North Macedonia, further fueled the flames, deepening the divisions between the two societies.
“The organized structures in Bulgaria that are conducting anti-state campaigns against North Macedonia are linked to Russian intelligence services,”
President Stevo Pendarovski stated at the time, immediately after a meeting of the Security Council in early 2023, at the height of this Macedonian–Bulgarian war of words.
The offensive launched by Bulgaria’s VMRO–BND, led by Krasimir Karakachanov, resembled a game in which one side tossed a tennis ball onto the court, only for it to be routinely returned by Macedonia’s VMRO-DPMNE—much to the delight of an audience increasingly demanding sharper and harsher rhetoric. In this escalating exchange, reason was gradually pushed to the margins, a development for which responsibility also lies with actors in both countries who had previously played constructive roles in seeking compromise.
Nevertheless, the populism of Bulgaria’s VMRO–BND failed to save the government of Boyko Borissov. In the spring of 2021, Bulgaria went to elections in which Borissov and his GERB party were defeated, while Karakachanov failed to secure a single parliamentary seat and subsequently resigned. Later in 2021, a technocratic government led by Kiril Petkov came to power. Although its rhetoric was more moderate, it proved unable to fully shed the political burdens inherited from its predecessors. In the spring of 2022, the Bulgarian parliament adopted a second Framework Position, which differed little from the first and retained many of its excessive demands.
France, as the EU presidency bearing significant responsibility for the resulting turmoil and the reawakening of Balkan atavisms, became actively involved in seeking a solution to overcome the Bulgarian veto through what became known as the “French proposal.” In its initial version, a large portion of the conditions contained in the two Bulgarian Framework Positions were removed under strong diplomatic pressure on Sofia from Paris, Brussels, and Washington. Nevertheless, the Macedonian government rejected the first French proposal because it included Bulgaria’s demand for a footnote qualifying the Macedonian language in official EU usage.
North Macedonia received support for its insistence that the Macedonian language not be subject to any footnotes and that it be accepted as such—as a fact—across all linguistic atlases. On 30 June 2022, the government of Dimitar Kovačevski accepted a revised plan under which the sole condition for opening negotiating chapters after the screening process was the inclusion of the Bulgarian minority in the Macedonian Constitution. With this, the Bulgarian veto was lifted, and the EU Council adopted the Negotiating Framework for North Macedonia’s accession talks.
Within this Negotiating Framework, there is no explicit requirement to complete the work of the joint historical commission as a precondition for accession. Instead, the commission is merely encouraged to conclude its work by the time North Macedonia joins the EU—an encouragement that does not constitute a binding obligation or accession condition. Regarding the commitments arising from the 2017 Treaty of Friendship and Good-Neighbourliness and from the Protocol of the second meeting of the intergovernmental Macedonian–Bulgarian commission, EU rules stipulate that the results of the commission’s work are presented orally by Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi to the EU Council, without a vote by member states.
As for North Macedonia’s obligations within the accession process—those whose fulfillment conditions the pace of negotiations and on which the European Commission submits written reports subject to voting in the European Council—the Negotiating Framework clearly states that the only issue subject to a formal benchmark is the implementation of the Action Plan concerning the protection of the rights of all minority groups in the country. In this context, particular emphasis is placed on hate speech, which is not limited to relations with Bulgaria but is identified as a broader sociopathological phenomenon—one with which North Macedonia faces serious challenges both in its relations with neighbors and within its own interethnic relations.
An Offensive of Disinformation Narratives
At that point, domestic populism entered the scene in Skopje in an eclectic configuration, bringing together VMRO-DPMNE, the already mobilized so-called “UDBA-linked” structures, as well as a sizable group of individuals and non-governmental organizations whose public authority had previously been built on a pro-European agenda. Acting in concert, these actors succeeded in generating broad public support for the emphatic NO to the Negotiating Framework and the Agreement, a stance that resulted in stagnation along North Macedonia’s path toward the European Union. From that moment onward, a steep decline in pro-European political sentiment set in, accompanied by an equally sharp rise in Euroscepticism—particularly among ethnic Macedonians as the majority population.
Subsequently, the German Federal Foreign Office initiated a study examining the narratives that shaped this dramatic turn of events—specifically, how an agreement that was meant to mark the beginning of Macedonia’s transformation instead contributed to its retreat into the entrenched divisions of the past.
The study was published in December 2024 by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) in Berlin and commissioned by the German Bundestag. Its methodology relied primarily on monitoring online media, with a strong emphasis on data drawn from social networks. One of the study’s authors is Katerina Kolozova, director of the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities (ISSH-S).
According to Kolozova, the so-called “French proposal” was deliberately presented to the Macedonian public as a behind-the-scenes initiative of the French government to resolve the Macedonian–Bulgarian dispute, rather than as what it actually was: an EU Negotiating Framework for North Macedonia.
“Yes, the proposal emerged during the French presidency, but it is a proposal of the EU Council. Incidentally, we observed that the term ‘French proposal’ is used almost exclusively within our country, and to some extent in Bulgaria, but never in Western European media, where it is referred to solely as the European Negotiating Framework,”
she explains, adding that the most frequently repeated phrases in the narratives circulating at the time claimed that through the name change and the so-called French proposal, Europe was behaving ‘fascistically’ and erasing Macedonian identity, that the EU was unnecessary, and that Europe should instead be ‘brought home,’ among similar assertions.
“The ISD Berlin study in which I participated—involving PhD-level researchers in digital data and media analysis from ISD London—demonstrated that when key words associated with these narratives are entered into data-harvesting tools, more than 300,000 data points emerge. Crucially, regardless of whether civil society organizations are included in the data network or excluded from it, the narrative remains unchanged. In other words, even when their data points are removed and only right-wing actors and Levica are left, the network remains the same. This proves that regardless of whether the discourse is generated by center-right, far-right, far-left political actors, or by so-called civic organizations, both the narrative and the structure of the data remain identical,”
Professor Kolozova explains.
Throughout this entire process, the uncritical stance of the media toward the numerous disinformation claims and speculative assertions surrounding the Negotiating Framework was particularly evident. A large number of outlets that present themselves as pro-European or ostensibly “neutral” persistently used the term “Bulgarian veto,” even though that veto had in fact been overcome through the so-called French proposal, after which the process became governed by a Negotiating Framework. This repeated invocation of a “Bulgarian veto” created the illusion among the public that if the EU were to change its decision-making rules and replace unanimity with qualified majority voting, the “Bulgarian veto” would simply disappear.
This offensive of disinformation, manipulation, and speculation—which profoundly distorted the public debate—was also tracked by the Institute for Media and Analysis (IMA). The institute identified numerous false claims regarding the Protocol, including assertions that it envisaged the demolition of monuments in North Macedonia not approved by Bulgaria, that archival documentation from 1945 to 1990 would be transferred wholesale to Bulgaria, or that prison sentences would be imposed for “speech” against Bulgarians.
“Independent fact-checkers have demonstrated that none of this is true, just as it is untrue that new school textbooks would require approval in Bulgaria or that Macedonia would have to apologize to Bulgaria for the persecution of Bulgarians in Macedonia by the communists. In its review of a disinformation-laden publication, Vistinomer.mk also addressed insinuations that the Protocol provides for the banning of books, films, and other works of art not approved by Bulgaria, or that all future books and films would have to receive approval from Sofia,”
the IMA analysis states.
Members of the joint historical commission also came under direct attack, as the propaganda machinery sought to discredit them by portraying them as “traitors.” Notably, the volume of publications opposing the agreement intensified after a VMRO-DPMNE member familiar with the commission’s work circulated claims that Macedonian representatives had received a “political order” to approve all demands made by their Bulgarian counterparts—claims for which the promised evidence was never produced. Nevertheless, the desired effect of inflaming public sentiment was achieved through a wave of publications rife with disinformation. These publications were likewise identified in the study commissioned by the German Bundestag.
“In 2023, the trend that began in 2022 of accusing the historical commission of ‘Bulgarization’ continued. The party Levica, which in 2022 accused the commission of serving ‘Bulgarization’ and acting in the interests of supremacist Bulgarian nationalism, continued throughout 2023—through its representatives—to stigmatize the commission as an instrument of Bulgarization,”
the Institute for Media and Analysis (IMA) notes.According to the institute, nearly identical propaganda networks, communication channels, and disinformation narratives concerning the alleged endangerment of Macedonian identity, language, and nation—previously deployed in 2018 during the Prespa Agreement and the referendum—were reused in 2022 in connection with the “French proposal,” and again in 2023 in relation to the constitutional amendments.
Then-opposition leader and current prime minister Hristijan Mickoski address the media in front of Parliament on 14 July 2022, following his meeting with Ursula von der Leyen | Photo: Facebook page of Hristijan Mickoski
Broader Horizons
Shaped by this charged atmosphere, the then leader of the opposition—and today’s prime minister—Hristijan Mickoski, adopting the discourse promoted by Levica, claimed that VMRO-DPMNE was the “guardian of the Macedonian language and identity” and would not allow constitutional amendments. On 14 July, standing in front of Parliament, he announced that he had shown Ursula von der Leyen “images of the killings of young people in Vatasha, of the hero Vera Ciriviri Trena, and of the deportation of Jews carried out by the Bulgarian fascist occupier.”
“Are we now supposed to accept that they are merely administrators?! VMRO-DPMNE will not support constitutional changes!” Mickoski stressed at the time.Today, the governing coalition holds a near two-thirds majority in the Macedonian Parliament, and the shortfall of a few MPs required to adopt the constitutional amendments could be overcome without major difficulty. The question, however, is what such a move would mean for Mickoski’s political career. In the meantime, narratives asserting that Macedonian identity itself is at stake continue to dominate public discourse, accompanied by demands for guarantees that Bulgaria will not introduce new conditions during the accession process.
Media outlets on both sides of the border played a significant role in bringing the process to this political deadlock. They bear responsibility for much of what has been published on Macedonian–Bulgarian relations over the past decades. It is therefore only fair to note that the Macedonian public was routinely exposed primarily to provocative statements by fringe figures and opportunists fishing in troubled waters. Since independence, any reasonable observer would conclude that people in Macedonia know very little about what contemporary Bulgaria actually is today and about its cultural and social dynamics.
My stay in Sofia—just a few days, undertaken for the purposes of this research—opened up entirely new horizons. I encountered people who have long since moved beyond the confines of “Zhivkovism” and who today see themselves as part of a broader intellectual and cultural space commonly referred to as Europe. From them, I also learned about numerous concerts, book launches, and exhibitions by Macedonian authors that had impressed Sofia’s cultural and political elite. Regrettably, the Macedonian public has received almost no information about these events.
Over the years, I have had the privilege of meeting many Bulgarians who view Macedonia without prejudice. In this context, I recall a particularly generous initiative launched by activists from Bulgaria and Macedonia back in 2013. At the time, an online campaign emerged calling on the municipal authorities in Sofia and Skopje to agree to name a street in the Macedonian capital after Zhelyu Zhelev, and a street in Sofia after Boris Trajkovski—the first Macedonian president who resisted entrenched stigmas and who, together with his Bulgarian counterpart Petar Stoyanov, jointly commemorated a historical event that unites the two societies.
The initiative gathered nearly 5,000 signatures on social media, yet not a single media outlet deemed it worthy of support. In this context of societies living isolated from one another—not by walls, but by the fog sown by nationalists—I would like to conclude this series with the words of my close friend Lucia Popovska, who today lives in Sofia as the Executive Director of the global network of organizations Masterpeace.
“I have been living in Sofia—which is a wonderful city, rich in memories of refugees from Macedonia—for many years now. One of the first things I noticed is that before moving here, I had no idea how closely Bulgarian identity narratives are tied to Macedonia. That surprised me greatly, and I understand now that there is no way for our relations to improve unless we truly come to understand this,”
Lucia says.
Through experiences like Lucia’s, or through the goodwill of those who wish to see the region defined by peace, well-being, prosperity, dialogue, and mutual understanding, we may finally begin to grasp why neither we nor Bulgaria could tolerate the first editor-in-chief of Nova Makedonija, Vasil Ivanovski, during the communist period. In doing so, we might also come to understand—both Macedonians and Bulgarians alike—what he meant as early as 1933 in his text titled “Why We Macedonians Are a Distinct Nation.” Such understanding, achieved through a mature democratic process, could well offer answers to many other questions that continue to trap Macedonian–Bulgarian relations in the vortex of Balkan atavisms.
