Bulgaria’s refusal to approve EU’s negotiating framework for North Macedonia at the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Ministers of EU’s member countries i.e. the EU’s General Affairs Council (GAC) on the 17th of November 2020 was expected, as it was announced and has been portended with resolutions, declarations, and announcements for more than two years, the intensity rising since the start of October. This latest culmination of the straining of the relations between both countries, more or less, reflects the turmoil that has been active for almost three decades.
The official relations between Macedonia and Bulgaria were officially established on the 15th of January 1992, when Bulgaria became the first country that recognized Macedonia as an independent country, simultaneously recognizing three other Yugoslav republics – Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In the political field, throughout the whole period of bilateral relations, there were expressions of Bulgarian nationalistic pretensions toward Macedonia i.e. toward its history, the identity of the ethnic Macedonians, and the Macedonian language. The statement of the then Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov (1997-2002) had a specific charge that echoed negatively in the Macedonian general public: “Macedonia is the most romantic part of the Bulgarian history.”
Such political outbursts, but also the disinformation in the Bulgarian media, as a rule, have been exploited by the Macedonian nationalists as a ground to spread hate speech towards Bulgaria and the Bulgarian nation, but also, euroscepticism – accusations towards NATO, EU and their supporters in Macedonia, proclaiming all of them them the accomplices.
From a declaration to an Agreement
The biggest formal step in the bilateral relations between the countries until then was the signing of the Treaty on Good Neighborliness, Friendship and cooperation, on the 22nd of February 1999 by the then Prime Ministers of Macedonia and Bulgaria, Ljubcho Georgievski and Ivan Kostov.
Bulgaria became a NATO member on the 29th of March 2004 and became a member of the European Union on the 1st of January 2007.
In August 2006, the political party VMRO-DPMNE led by Nikola Gruevski came to power and its method of right-wing populism included periods of flaming confrontations with the neighbors and the international institutions.
With the signing of the Treaty in 1999, the first formal signs that Bulgaria will set conditions for Macedonia’s Euro-Atlantic integrations date from 2006, when the Bulgarian President Georgi Prvanov and the Foreign Affairs Minister Ivajlo Kalfin warn official Skopje that “the granted loan in the form of unconditional Bulgarian support for the membership of the Republic of Macedonia’s membership in the EU and NATO has already been spent,” and in the future, the Bulgarian support will depend on the Macedonian “good neighborhood policy.” This will be confirmed the next year, when during the US President George W. Bush’s visit to Sophia in 2007, the Bulgarian President Prvanov and Prime Мinister Sergej Stanishev will complain about the “Republic of Macedonia’s not-so-good neighborhood policy.”
In July 2009, in Bulgaria, the GERB political party arose to power which like VMRO-DPMNE is a member of the European People’s Party (EPP) and Bojko Borisov formed his first government as a prime minister.
In the following period, apart from the well-known rhetoric both from official Sofia and certain politicians, such as the current Bulgarian Vice Prime Minister Krasimir Karakachanov, who at the time was the President of the VMRO-BND and will arrive in November 2012, when Bojko Borisov, also a Prime Minister of Bulgaria during that period, will make a claim the Declaration from 1999 to be turned into an Agreement for Good Neighborly Relations. In the aftermath, the then Head of Bulgarian diplomacy Nikolaj Mladenov sent a letter to his Macedonian counterpart Nikola Poposki where he set three conditions that Skopje will have to meet n order to receive Bulgarian support in the Euro-Atlantic process. Apart from the building of the necessary infrastructure for strengthened cooperation and the forming of a Council on a higher level where joint annual government sessions will take place, Mladenov asked for an Agreement for Good Neighborly relations and cooperation to be signed.
Then, in July 2013, the most serious positive step forward arrived with an informal joint mini session by the Governments of Bulgaria and Macedonia which took place in Kjustendil and was marked as an effort to deepen the interrelations and promotion and development of good neighborly relations but almost soon afterward followed a was a cold shower – the relatively moderate Foreign Affairs Minister Kristijan Vigenin clearly marked the signing of the Good Neighborly agreement as a condition for the ongoing support on part of Bulgaria. A month later Bulgariais submitting a non-paper in Brussels, with serious accusations towards Macedonia for falsifying the history and for seeking Macedonian minority in Bulgaria.
In January 2015, the work on the preparation of the Good neighborly agreement is slowly underway with remarks on part of Bulgaria that such agreement will not mean new requests on its part, but that it’s absolutely necessary.
On the 4th of May 2017, after the parliamentary elections Bulgaria has a new Government led by Borisov, and its cabinet features Krasimir Karakachanov of VMRO-BND as a Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, which party is part of the ultra-nationalistic parties “United Patriots.”
A real advancement in both countries’ relations starts with the formation of Zoran Zaev’s government on the 31st of May 2017. One of the first steps of the new SDSM led Government which was formed after 11 years of VMRO-DPMNE rule, was the meeting between both countries’ prime ministers on the 20th of June 2017 in Sofia.
After the meeting, the then-new Macedonian prime minister and his Bulgarian counterpart Bojko Borisov announced that the agreement between both countries is almost finished and what remains is a small part that has to be agreed upon. This part would overcome on a ministerial level. It was then when it was announced that the agreement would be signed on the 2nd of August. On the 9th of July, both ministries =informed that a compromise was reached.
The Good Neighborly Agreement between the Republic of Macedonia and Republic of Bulgaria finally is being signed on the 1st of August 2017 in Skopje by both prime ministers Zoran Zaev and Bojko Borisov, which was followed by joint celebration of Ilinden holiday in Krushevo.
The Macedonian parliament ratified the Agreement on the 15th of January 2018.
One step forward – one step back through historical issues
With the biggest step forward in the relations between Macedonia and Bulgaria up to that moment, a feeling of optimism arose that things will move in the right direction. In the aftermath, Bulgaria had been announcing its support declaratively about Macedonia’s accession into NATO and the EU, which due to the unsolved dispute with Greece it has no serious formal validity as this Southern neighbor, and not Bulgaria was considered as the main obstacle in this country’s Euro-Atlantic integrations.
But with the signing of the Prespa Agreement with Greece in June 2018, which stopped the decade long antagonism, when Greece stopped being the obstacle for Macedonia’s Euro-Atlantic integrations, things began taking a different turn towards worse with often controversial statements by nationalistic politicians, such as Karakachanov and by certain journalists.
In October 2018, in Bulgaria, there was a corruption scandal related to granting Bulgarian citizenship to citizens from neighboring countries in order to have the right to live and work in the EU. “The whistle-blower” Katja Mateva, a former Director of a department at the Justice Ministry, said that during the period between 2011 and 2016, only 70.000 Macedonian citizens have received a Bulgarian passport, accusing the Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Karakachanov that his party VMRO-BND has been supporting itself from the sale of Bulgarian citizenships and taking bribes in the amount between 1000 and 5000 EUR.
In the meantime, one of the main topics from the Good Neighborly Agreement with Bulgaria was met through the formation of a joint Commission for historical issues. It was formed at the beginning of July 2018 and it set the directions for work, and the first major result of its work was seen during the second half of February 2019 when a joint celebration was recommended of Saints Clement, Naum, and Tzar Samoil, which both countries will accept in a matter of several months. But the obstacle began with the discussions about Goce Delchev, in June 2019, which still continues, despite the six meetings during that year alone, when upon the proposal of the Macedonian side, due to the elections in North Macedonia, the work of the commission was put on hold. But the tensions among the members didn’t stop there, so the Bulgarian side began accusing of a blockade.
In July 2019, Dr. Krasimir Knev, the President of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC), warned that the Romani people, Muslims, and the Macedonians are most often targets of disinformation in Bulgaria.
One of the controversial issues promoted by Deputy Prime Minister Karakachanov is related to disinforming about the role of the Czarist Bulgaria during the WWII , where among other issues it denied or it minimized the role of its government during that period with the Holocaust of the Jews from Macedonia. In August 2020, the Bulgarian Jewish Organization “Shalom” accused Karakachanov for promoting new forms of antisemitism.
After taking a one year break, the Commission had met again in mid-October 2020, but without being able to reach an agreement about recent history.
The rhetoric is heating up, the preaching is becoming more frequent
The whole period since the formation of the joint commission will be marked by constant declarations on part of the outspoken Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister Krasimir Karakachanov, but also including MPE Andrej Kovachev about the “stolen” Bulgarian history, the Bulgarian roots of the Macedonians and the Macedonian language. During 2019, the Bulgarian Foreign Affairs Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva joined in the current rhetoric.
The situation will become electrified in September 2019, when the Bulgarian state leadership will gather for consultations with an announcement it will set red lines for Skopje. before the October meeting of EU’s Council in 2019,on the 9th of October the same year, the Bulgarian Government adopted a framework position , that the next day was followed by a Declaration on part of the Bulgarian Parliament,with almost identical requests . Despite the declarative support for the opening of the accession negotiations, their position contains new conditions for the Republic of North Macedonia, that allegedly have resulted from Good Neighborly Agreement. The framework position consists of detailed conditions that refer to the accession as a whole and especially the first and the second intergovernmental conference as well as chapters 35 and 10.
What followedwas the statement issued by the Bulgarian government as an addition to the Council’s conclusions that took place in March 2020 that centers on the general conditions, the condition for the first intergovernmental conference and Chapter 35. Even though the statement isn’t a document adopted by the Council, it still is a clear red card on part of Bulgaria that it will block the adoption of the negotiation framework, which is allowed by the new methodology for the enlargement of the EU since a consensus of all member countries is necessary.
In July 2020, a new series of corruption scandals have caused a massive protest movement that is demanding resignation from Borisov’s government and fundamental reforms. The protests had been happening on a daily basis and still ongoing in most of the cities throughout the country. On the 8th of October, the European Parliament adopted a resolution that condemned the corruption and the misuse of state and European funds in Bulgaria.
During the same period, various Bulgarian analysts from other EU member countries have stressed that the Bulgarian authorities are boosting their nationalistic rhetoric to divert the attention from the reasons for the protests. Among other issues, the Bulgarian parliament upon proposal by VMRO-BND changed the name of the national holiday the 24th of May from “Day of the Bulgarian education and culture, and Slavic literature” into од “Day of the Bulgarian Literature, Education and Culture,” as a first step toward renaming the Cyrillic alphabet into a “Bulgarian alphabet” on a level of the EU.
In September, Bulgaria sealed the process concerning North Macedonia that started with s statement dating from March with the so-called Explanatory memorandum that is being sent to all EU member countries, seeking support from them.
With the memorandum, official Sofia demands that Good Neighborly Agreement must be met, to be a part of the negotiation framework with North Macedonia including chapter 35 as it repeated the Bulgarian stance about the history, identity, and the language of the Macedonians, as well as the rejection of any sort of claims about the existence of Macedonian minority in Bulgaria.
Simultaneously, the nationalistic circles both in Macedonia and Bulgaria, including the propaganda media in Russia , are beginning to increase the production of political spins , disinformation and hate speech and these serve to deepen the curren polarization, the euro-skepticism, connected with sexism и the nationality.
The last two steps before the meeting of EU’s Council for General Issues on the 17th of November 2020 as an effort to reconcile both sides – the meetings in Berlin and at the EU Summit – Western Balkans in Sofia , still didn’t bear fruit , even thoughthere were certain signals that an approval might be reached.
The session, which is considered as an official start for North Macedonia’s EU accession negotiations should take place this December. Prime Ministers Zoran Zaev and Bojko Borisov, including the representatives of the country that is presiding with the EU, Germany, still don’t know whether the intergovernmental session will take place. Still, for that to happen, a consensus from all member countries is necessary.
