As the government parties get ready to send the French proposal for lifting the Bulgarian blockade on the country’s EU accession talks to parliament, opposition to the plan is growing.
People at a protest in Skopje hold placards saying ‘no’ to the French proposal for resolving the dispute between North Macedonia and Bulgaria. Photo by EPA-EFE/GEORGI LICOVSKI
The draft proposal France sent to North Macedonia last week to unclog the country’s EU accession talks, by removing the Bulgarian blockade over history and identity issues, is to be sent to the parliament, a meeting between the partners in the ruling Social Democrat-led coalition on Sunday decided.
But some smaller parties in the alliance have briefed that they did not give blank support to PM Dimitar Kovacevski, which is why common ground will be sought at a parliament plenary session, where they said they would file amendments.
The smaller parties said they told the PM that inclusion of the bilateral disputes between Skopje and Sofia in the EU negotiating framework, as per the proposal, was unacceptable.
They have demanded clarification about whether the yearly reports regarding progress on the historical and educational differences between the two countries would be part of the negotiating framework.
France sent a revised version of its plan to North Macedonia last week at the end of its rotating EU presidency.
“The key for us is to see the bilateral protocol [with Bulgaria] and whether those yearly progress reports are in fact referring to progress in talks on the history and education issues. If they are, we cannot accept and negotiate with the EU on something which is a bilateral problem,” the head of the small Democratic Renewal, DOM, party, Maja Moracanin, told media after the meeting. “But the protocol is still being prepared and there is no final version,” she added.
Under their 2017 friendship agreement, Bulgaria and North Macedonia set up a joint history commission and agreed to issue other cooperation and issue yearly protocols on progress. The fear now is that these bilateral issues would, in indirect form, become a part of the EU negotiating framework.
North Macedonia’s path to EU membership talks has been blocked by Bulgaria since 2020 over a so-called “history and identity dispute”.
Bulgaria insists that the Macedonian identity and language are of Bulgarian origin. It also says Bulgarians are repressed in North Macedonia, and must be included in the country’s constitution as a state-founding ethnicity.
Albania’s own EU integration process has suffered collateral damage from the standoff, as Albania’s EU talks are bracketed in one package with North Macedonia’s.
As the government in Skopje struggles to produce a definite official answer, pressure against the proposed deal is mounting.
On Saturday and Sunday, the opposition held big protests in Skopje against the deal, insisting it is humiliating and dangerous to national interests.
During a meeting between PM Kovacevski and main opposition VMRO DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski, over the weekend, the latter said he would give up his demand for early elections – if the government rejects the French proposal.
“In this proposal we see all the Bulgarian demands, which means the total Bulgarisation [of North Macedonia],” Mickoski said.
The country’s Academy of Sciences and Arts, MANU, the Macedonian Orthodox Church, MPC, and the largest diaspora organisation, United Macedonian Diaspora, UMD, have all rejected it.
On Friday, however, Kovacevski defended the plan, saying that the country’s core demands, especially for guarantees about the Macedonian language and identity, had been addressed.
But he said he would first need to consult the President, the opposition, the parliament and the civic organisations.
President Stevo Pendarovski on Sunday said the proposal was neither good nor catastrophic but was generally acceptable as a basis for progress.
The Bulgarian parliament already backed the draft, albeit in its previous form. It is still not sure whether after receiving the revised draft, Bulgaria would again put it to parliament for adoption.
Source link: balkaninsight.com
