Accession of North Macedonia to the European Union
The accession of North Macedonia (formerly the Republic of Macedonia) to the European Union (EU) has been on the current agenda for future enlargement of the EU since 2005, when it became a candidate for accession. Macedonia submitted its membership application in 2004, thirteen years after its independence from Yugoslavia. It is one of five current EU candidate countries, together with Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey. The use of the country name "Macedonia" was the object of a dispute with neighboring Greece between 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, Bulgaria effectively 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 tolerated hate speech, and minority claims towards Bulgaria. History. North Macedonia began its formal process of rapprochement with the European Union in 2000, by initiating negotiations about  the EU's Stabilisation 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 in Luxembourg. The agreement was ratified by the Macedonian parliament on 12 April 2001 and came into force on 1 April 2004. On 22 March 2004, Macedonia submitted its application for EU membership. On 6 September 2004, the Macedonian government adopted a National Strategy for European integration, supported by the country's parliament through its Commission for European Issues. The government subsequently began the procedure of answering the questionnaire of  the European Commission regarding its performance in preparation for membership in accordance with the Copenhagen criteria, a process that was finished by 31 January 2005. The European Council officially 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. However, on November 17, 2020 Bulgaria has blocked the official start of accession talks with the country. North Macedonia is now expected to offer further guarantees to Bulgaria, that it will keep on a 2017 friendship treaty with Sofia, which deals with historical issues. Name dispute with Greece. A major obstacle for the accession process was the Republic's unresolved objection by Greece over its name, as  Greece argued that it implied territorial ambitions towards Greece's own northern province of Macedonia. 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 minister Alexis Tsipras  and his Macedonian counterpart Zoran Zaev, known as the Prespa 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. Historical and linguistic dispute with Bulgaria. 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 the Macedonia name dispute with Greece, 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 on historical negationism of the Bulgarian identity, culture and legacy in the broader region 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 by ASNOM. Concerning the Macedonian 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 from Bulgarian. 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 the Council of the European Union containing its framework position on the accession of North Macedonia. On November 17, 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. A survey conducted in November 2020, by Alpha Research of 803 people from all over Bulgaria, 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. Domestic politics. EU funding. North Macedonia has so far received €1.3 billion of development aid until 2020 from the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, a funding mechanism for EU candidate countries. Campaign. The government's motto for the candidacy is ""The Sun, too, is a star."", referring to the sun from the flag of North Macedonia being displayed among the other stars in the flag of Europe. Government structuring. 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: Ethnic Albanian sentiments. Sentiments among ethnic Albanians of North Macedonia are traditionally strongly pro-EU. Public opinion. 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. Chronology of relations with the EU. Visa liberalisation process. 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 the Schengen Area, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania without a visa when travelling with biometric passports. Negotiation progress. No chapters have been opened thus far.