Accession of North Macedonia to the European Union

The accession ofNorth Macedoniato theEuropean Unionhas been on the current agenda forfuture enlargement of the EUsince 2005, when it became an official candidate for accession. The then Republic of Macedonia submitted its membership application in 2004, thirteen years after its independence fromYugoslavia. It is one of nine current EU candidate countries, together withAlbania,Bosnia and Herzegovina,Georgia,Moldova,Montenegro,Serbia,TurkeyandUkraine.
The use of the country name "Macedonia" was the object of a dispute with neighboringGreecebetween 1991 and 2019, resulting in a Greek veto against EU and NATO accession talks, which lasted from 2008 to 2019. After the issue was resolved, the EU gave its formal approval to begin accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania in March 2020.
However, in November 2020,Bulgariaeffectively blocked the official start of North Macedonia's EU accession negotiations over what it perceives as slow progress on the implementation of the 2017 friendship treaty between the two countries, state-supported or toleratedhate speechand minority claims towards Bulgaria.
On 24 June 2022, Bulgaria's parliament approved lifting the country's veto on opening EU accession talks with North Macedonia. On 16 July 2022, theAssembly of North Macedoniaalso approved the revised French proposal, allowing accession negotiations to begin.The start of negotiations was officially launched on 19 July 2022.To make progress, however, the country must change its constitution, including local Bulgarians in it, and overcome the latent opposition of neighbouring Bulgaria.However, several parliamentary presented parties, have consistently blocked the passage of the required constitutional amendment.
North Macedonia began its formal process of rapprochement with the European Union in 2000, by initiating negotiations about the EU'sStabilisation and Association Process, and it became the first non-EU country in the Balkans to sign the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA), on 9 April 2001 inLuxembourg. The agreement was ratified by the Macedonian parliament on 12 April 2001 and came into force on 1 April 2004.
On 22 March 2004, the Republic of Macedonia submitted its application for EU membership. On 6 September 2004, the Macedonian government adopted a National Strategy forEuropean integration, supported by the country's parliament through its Commission for European Issues. The government subsequently began the procedure of answering the questionnaire of theEuropean Commissionregarding its performance in preparation for membership in accordance with theCopenhagen criteria, a process that was finished by 31 January 2005. TheEuropean Councilofficially granted the country candidate status on 17 December 2005, after a review and a positive recommendation of the candidacy by the European Commission.
After the naming dispute with Greece was solved in 2019, accession negotiations were expected to start within the same year, but in June 2019 the EU General Affairs Council decided to postpone the decision to October, due to objections from a number of countries including the Netherlands and France.France vetoed the decision again in October.On 25 March 2020 the Council of the European Union decided to open accession negotiations, which was endorsed by the European Council the following day.
On 17 November 2020 Bulgaria blocked the official start of accession talks with the country.North Macedonia was told to offer further guarantees to Bulgaria that it would honour the 2017 friendship treaty, which deals with historical issues.
A major obstacle for the accession process was the Republic's unresolvedobjection by Greeceover its name, as Greece argued that it implied territorial ambitions towards Greece's own northern province ofMacedonia. While the country preferred to be called by its constitutional name, Republic of Macedonia, the European Union, in acknowledgment of concerns raised by Greece, maintained a practice of recognising it only as the "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", a compromise of "provisional reference" introduced by the United Nations in 1993. Greece, as any other EU country, has veto power against new accessions, and blocked Macedonian accession due to the naming dispute.
On 12 June 2018, an agreement was reached between Greek prime ministerAlexis Tsiprasand his Macedonian counterpartZoran Zaev, known as thePrespa agreement,under which the country would be renamed the "Republic of North Macedonia".As part of this deal, Greece explicitly withdrew its previous opposition, allowing the EU to approve on 26 June 2018 a pathway to starting accession talks.
Although Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the then Republic of Macedonia, most of its academics, as well as the general public, do not recognize the Macedonian language and nation formed after the Second World War as being separate from Bulgarian proper.As part of the efforts to find a solution to theMacedonia name disputewithGreece, the Macedonian constitution was changed twice (in 1995, and then again in 2018) to formally exclude any possible territorial aspirations towards neighboring countries.
Some Macedonian politicians consider Bulgarian territory to be part of a greater Macedonia, claiming the majority of the population there are oppressed ethnic Macedonians.Macedonia and Bulgaria signed a friendship treaty to improve their complicated relations in August 2017. A joint commission on historical and educational issues was formed in 2018 to serve as a forum where controversial historical and educational issues could be raised and discussed. This commission has made little progress in its work for a period of one year.
In October 2019, Bulgaria set out a "Framework position" warning that it would block the accession process unless North Macedonia fulfilled demands regarding anti-Bulgarian ideology in the country,and ultimately over an 'ongoing nation-building process' based onhistorical negationismof the Bulgarian identity, culture and legacy in the broaderregion of Macedonia.
Bulgarian politicians claim North Macedonia remains the only country in NATO, that is an EU-candidate, whose politics is based on communist historical and linguistic dogmas accepted byASNOM.Concerning theMacedonian language, Bulgaria advises the EU to avoid using the term "Macedonian language" during the accession talks, and instead use the term "Official language of Republic of North Macedonia", reaffirming that it does not recognize the language as separate fromBulgarian.In North Macedonia this is widely perceived as a direct attack on its national identity and language.
In September 2020 Bulgaria has sent an explanatory memorandum to theCouncil of the European Unioncontaining its framework position on the accession of North Macedonia.On 17 November 2020, Bulgaria refused to approve the European Union's negotiation framework for North Macedonia, effectively blocking the official start of accession talks with this country over slow progress on the implementation of the 2017 Friendship Treaty between the two countries, state-supported or tolerated hate speech and minority claims towards Bulgaria.
The veto received condemnation by some intellectuals,and criticism from international observers.Asurveyconducted in November 2020, by Alpha Research of 803 people from all overBulgaria, found that 83.8% of Bulgarians were against the accession of North Macedonia in the EU until the historical dispute is solved, only 10.2% of Bulgarians supported the accession with the rest not having an opinion.
In June 2022 at the very end of the FrenchPresidency of the Council of the European Union(January–June), an urgent proposal was put out by the presidentEmmanuel Macronto resolve the dispute between the two countries. The proposal provoked a political crisis in Bulgaria. On June 8,Slavi Trifonovwithdrew his party from Bulgaria's governing coalition, citing the issue of North Macedonia. This faced criticism from PresidentRumen Radev, who said the proposal was relatively good. However, the government abdicated its responsibility and delegated it entirely to the parliament. As result on 22 June the Bulgarian government faced amotion of no confidence, which it lost.Nevertheless, on 24 June, after heated discussions, the parliament approved lifting the veto.President Macron claimed that the European leaders had put a lot of pressure on Bulgaria to accept this deal, confirming its approval was a "very good signal". On June 25, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sofia stated that the speed with which North Macedonia would approach the EU membership, already depended on itself.Two days before the end of the French presidency of the EU, the Prime Minister of North Macedonia Kovačevski stated that the government remains of the opinion that the agreement proposed from Paris and approved by Bulgaria is unacceptable for the country. However, since then, the proposal has been backed by the government of North Macedonia.In early July 2022,protestsbegan in North Macedonia against the French proposal. However, the proposal was accepted by theAssembly of North Macedoniaon 16 July 2022.
On 17 July 2022 in Sofia, the foreign ministers of Bulgaria and North Macedonia signed a second bilateral protocol to the Treaty of Good Neighborhood and Friendship between the two countries. Such protocols were supposed to be signed every year, but in practice they have not been signed since 2019. According to the decision of theBulgarian National Assemblyof June 24, the signing of this protocol is a condition for Bulgaria to approve the Negotiating Framework for the Republic of North Macedonia. The protocol contains specific measures and deadlines for the implementation of agreements on historical issues between the two countries, measures against hate speech, etc.
On 24 June 2022, Bulgaria's parliament approved lifting the country's veto on opening EU accession talks with North Macedonia. On 16 July 2022, theAssembly of North Macedoniaalso approved the revised French proposal, allowing accession negotiations to begin.The start of negotiations was officially launched on 19 July 2022.The approved document includes the condition to stop "hate speech" against all "minorities and communities", that North Macedonia recognize a shared history with Bulgaria, and the inclusion of Bulgarian people as a recognized minority in the Constitution.On July 17, North Macedonia signed a special protocol with Bulgaria to cooperate on these subjects.However, there was no progress in the inclusion of the Bulgarian minority in theConstitution of North Macedonia, though in February 2023, the Bulgarian parliament adopted a declaration condemning, an allegedanti-Bulgarian campaignthere and warned it could stop North Macedonia's EU integration again.
Following the formal start of accession negotiations in July 2022, the next step is for North Macedonia to meet the conditions to start substantial negotiations by the opening of the first 5 negotiating chapters (Fundamentals cluster) at a second intergovernmental conference. This step will not begin until the "opening phase" has been completed, which according to theCouncilconclusions of July 2022 is conditional on theAssembly of North Macedoniaapproving the agreedconstitutional amendmentrelated to the Bulgarian minority.A two-thirds majority vote in the Assembly of North Macedonia is needed in order to approve the required constitutional amendment. However, the winning party of the most recentelections in May 2024wasVMRO-DPMNE, which has consistently blocked the passage of the required constitutional amendment, and campaigned on the idea that the EU negotiation framework instead should be changed to omit this requirement.
On 25 September 2024, the EU announced the decoupling of Albania from North Macedonia on the EU accession path, due to the disputes between North Macedonia and Bulgaria around theBulgarian minority in North Macedonia, which had delayed further talks.Following the decision on decoupling of their processes, the EU opened negotiations on the first chapters with Albania separately on 15 October 2024.
North Macedonia has so far received €1.3 billion of development aid until 2020 from theInstrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, a funding mechanism for EU candidate countries.
The government's motto for the candidacy is "The Sun, too, is a star.", referring to the sun from theflag of North Macedoniabeing displayed among the other stars in theflag of Europe.
North Macedonia's government has established a management infrastructure for the European integration process on the basis of a paper adopted in 1997 under the title "The strategic bases of the Republic of [North] Macedonia on achieving the membership of the European Union". It consists of the following institutions:
The other institutions supporting the EU integration process are the following:
Around 79% of the population of North Macedonia is in favor of EU accession.However, those who think North Macedonia is closer to EU entry today than it was in 2005, when it first received candidate member status, dropped from 57% to 32% between 2018 and 2021.
On 1 January 2008 the visa facilitation and readmission agreements between Macedonia and the EU entered into force.Macedonia began a visa liberalisation dialogue with the EU in February 2008 and was added to the list of visa exempt nationals on 19 December 2009, allowing their citizens to enter theSchengen Areaand Cyprus without a visa when travelling withbiometric passports.
On 19 November 2024, the European Union and North Macedonia signed a Security and Defence Partnership.
The screening process has been completed though no chapters have been opened thus far.