Six fateful months for Macedonia

 

 The duration of sincerity in New Year's wishes and congratulations seems to be getting shorter, and the need to face reality is getting faster. In the new year, Macedonia continues with the old challenges of European integration. The new moment is that from the shadow of the "veto game" comes an important actor - France, which began the presidency of the Council of the EU. With France taking over the six-month presidency of the Union, its position on Bulgaria's blockade of Macedonia's European integration Macedonia needs to become clearer and more open, because so far it has been mentioned on suspicion that France is secretly supporting Bulgaria. , writes the Skopje newspaper Nova Makedonija in an article presented without editorial intervention.

 Of course, the focus of the veto remains on Bulgaria, and the focus of the negotiations is on the new Prime Minister Kiril Petkov, ie. how his idea of ​​negotiating with Macedonia in six working groups will be correlated with the declaration of the Bulgarian parliament on the European integration of RSM. In fact, Petkov asked for six months to resolve the dispute with Macedonia. Albania's prime minister, Edi Rama, has set such a six-month deadline, announcing that Albania will wait just as long for  Macedonia to start EU membership talks together, and then seek secession from the negotiating package.

 Such positions raise the dilemma of whether there is a basis for optimism about Macedonia's European integration  and what the conditions are for progress, despite the change of leaders in the negotiation process in Skopje as well (procedure for electing a new Macedonian prime minister begins) and in Sofia, and the EU presidency?

The most optimistic are the expectations of the special envoy of the Macedonian government for resolving the dispute between the authorities in Skopje and Sofia, Vlado Buckovski. He is convinced that in the coming months Bulgaria will lift the blockade from the beginning of Macedonia membership talks in the EU.

 "In 2021, Bulgaria did not have a regular government for eight months. Three parliamentary and one presidential election were held in the country. This has seriously affected our efforts to find a mutually acceptable solution and to lift the blockade on our path to the EU ... Despite these unforeseen circumstances, progress has been made in building trust between the two countries. The time frame for these working groups, which will be filled with intensive meetings, can be shortened. I am convinced of this, but the situation will become clearer after the meeting of the new Macedonian Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski with his Bulgarian counterpart Kiril Petkov, which is scheduled for mid-January ... In 2022, I expect a mutually acceptable solution to be reached with Bulgaria. A solution that will be based on mutual respect and will be preserved. The Bulgarian blockade will be lifted. "The start of negotiations with the EU will finally be a reality," Buckovski said in an interview with Macedonian media.

However, given the well-known positions of most factors influencing the start of Macedonia's  EU membership talks, those familiar with the union's processes are more optimistic about lifting the blockade on a concrete step towards Macedonia's European integration. 

 "If we really start negotiations with the EU in the next six months, during the French presidency of the Union, the most likely option is in June, when the French presidential election will end. However, until such a desired projection is achieved, there are many limiting factors - concentrated in the Bulgarian veto. We must first see how the Bulgarian Prime Minister Petkov imagines the functioning of these working groups in the negotiations with Macedonia, which he himself proposed. In addition, how will the results of these working groups be determined in relation to the declaration of the Bulgarian Parliament, which strikes like a wall any optimism in the negotiations for the withdrawal of the Bulgarian veto. But above all, we need to see whether relations with  Macedonia will be a political priority in Bulgaria at all, given all other domestic political challenges, that this will happen at some point and there is no legal basis and obligation to preserve the package. However, other factors also play a role in the EU's decision to secede (Albania), "said Simonida Katsarska, director of the Institute for European Policy in Skopje.

 Historian Alexander Litovski, a former member of the Joint Macedonian-Bulgarian Historical Commission, says Bulgaria is not at all sincere in the negotiation process for lifting the veto on the start of Macedonia's  EU membership talks and is only gaining time for new blackmail. , to the detriment of  Macedonia.

"I am not at all optimistic that there will be a step forward in the European integration of (RS) Macedonia during these six months of the French EU presidency. Bulgaria is deliberately postponing the talks as a form of pressure on the EU and wants to receive from Macedonia everything that is stated in the declaration of its parliament. France, as president of the Union, is not at all interested in the course of the EU enlargement process, so the Bulgarian veto on  Macedonia suits it. The United States must play a key role in pushing for some acceleration in EU enlargement and thus in resolving the Macedonian-Bulgarian dispute. EU countries will not put pressure on Bulgaria, because they are in fact its partners in the blockade against  Macedonia. And Bulgaria does not want partial discounts or implementation of any plans 5 + 1, 3 + 2 or whatever you call them. The only goal of Bulgaria, which wants to spend through the EU, is the complete assimilation of Macedonia, the Macedonians, the Macedonian history, the Macedonian language, ie. to extract an acknowledgment that everything belongs to Bulgaria, "said historian Alexander Litovski.