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It is time for Brussels to invite Northern Macedonia to the negotiating table. However, will a neighbor, who has been tormented by his Macedonian phantom pain for 100 years, be allowed to block the process, asks Prof. Wolf Brunbauer in an analysis quoted by Deutsche Welle.
Northern Macedonia is celebrating 30 years of independence. Over the years, society and politics have achieved amazing things, although the country – unlike most others in the region – has had to fight absurd resistance coming from EU countries. It is high time this “success story” was rewarded with EU accession. To that end, however, Brussels will also have to come to terms with quarrels within the European Union.
This he wrote at the beginning of his extensive analysis Professor Wolff Brunbauer, director of the Leibniz Institute for Eastern and South-Eastern European Studies. Here we will quote only a few passages from this analysis, which begins with the recall that Bulgaria was the first to recognize the independence of the new state.
A Balkan success story
“Northern Macedonia has many problems: widespread unemployment, low wages, shrinking population, large emigration, corruption and deficits in the rule of law. Nevertheless, in many ways it is a true Balkan success story. And 30 years ago, numerous observers had great concerns about the country. On the one hand, there have been and continue to be tensions between the Macedonian majority and the large Albanian minority. On the other hand: since the end of the 19th century, Macedonia has become an apple of discord between Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, which with historical and ethnic arguments claim rights over the region, regardless of how the people there identify themselves. “
Professor Brunbauer went on to analyze in detail the path he has taken since then and the many obstacles facing the young state.
Period of stabilization after Gruevski
“Democratic consciousness prevails among the Macedonian population. This was once again proved by the removal of the leadership of VMRO-DPMNE of Nikola Gruevski, whose government in the period 2004-2016 gradually acquired an increasingly authoritarian and nationalist appearance. It is part of this dubious legacy of this government the attempt to convey the ancient appearance of the capital. Many modern buildings in Skopje were adorned with disgusting classicist facades, and the city center was threatened by numerous historical monuments to Macedonian heroes, starting with Philip, the father of Alexander the Great. In this way, it had to be proved that the Macedonian people were a successor to the ancient Macedonians. “
In the second part of his analysis, Professor Wolf Brunbauer addresses the issue of EU membership in Northern Macedonia:
“The EU has offered the prospect of membership to the Western Balkan countries if they meet the Copenhagen criteria. Since the Social Democrats and Zoran Zaev came to power in 2017, Northern Macedonia has consistently pursued a reform course. This course has led to a unique solution in European history. , for which the Prime Minister took a serious political risk: the change of state name. ()
The dispute with Sofia
But the government in Skopje had done without the Bulgarian lion, who rediscovered his Macedonian obsession. Because in the imaginary map of the Bulgarian nation Macedonia stands as a territory that should actually be Bulgarian, and for many Bulgarians to this day it is difficult to accept the Macedonians as an independent nation, let alone Macedonian as an independent language. From the Academy of Sciences to the proverbial taxi driver, but also in government circles: in Bulgaria they are too attached to the mythology that the history of Macedonia before 1944 is part of Bulgarian history, and the time after, including the emergence of the Macedonian nation, are just some kind of delusion imposed by Tito.
Since last year, and most recently at the EU summit in June 2021, the Bulgarian government has vetoed the start of EU membership talks with Northern Macedonia. As a condition for this Sofia demands historical and political subordination from Northern Macedonia. For example, to admit that until 1944 there was a Bulgarian dialect, that people from Bulgarian history should not be declared Macedonians, that textbooks and curricula should be adapted to the “common history”, and the inscriptions that incite “hatred to the Bulgarian people “, to be deleted. Behind the last request is probably the view that those inscriptions that are reminiscent of the crimes of the Bulgarian occupation authorities during the Second World War are not convenient.
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It is obvious that none of these requirements has anything to do with the Copenhagen criteria for EU membership – moreover, that in Bulgaria itself in terms of the rule of law and media freedom the vector points in the wrong direction. “
100 years of “Macedonian phantom pain”
At the end of his extensive analysis, Ulf Brunbauer emphasized that Northern Macedonia tolerated diversity and that its citizens demonstrated faith in democracy and a commitment to the EU. According to him, the country’s membership in the European Union is important not only against the background of its sad economic situation, but also because of the danger posed by undemocratic tendencies coming from outside – from Russia, Turkey, Serbia and even Hungary. At the end of the article we read:
“It is more than ironic that this membership is blocking the very country that pretends to be the best friend of Northern Macedonia, and which should have a vital interest in its accession to the EU. This could swell into a real tragedy not only for the North. Macedonia, but also for the already damaged image of the EU in the Western Balkans, where people feel trapped in eternal anticipation and face new and new demands. and now the European Union will allow a country to take it from him, which at the moment is not even able to nominate its own government, but has been suffering from its Macedonian phantom pain for 100 years. “
The title is “Dnevnik”. The original title was “Prof. Brunbauer: Northern Macedonia deserves to start negotiations with Brussels”.
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