In June 2021, Bulgaria again blocked the start of European Union accession talks with neighbouring
North Macedonia as part of a long-standing dispute over their history and language.
Widely seen as a petty and incomprehensible issue,
it nevertheless underscores just how important identity issues can be in international relations.
So, what is the issue all about?
Hello and welcome. If you're new to the channel my name is James Ker-Lindsay and here I take an
informed look at international relations, conflicts and the origins of countries.
What is a nation?
Unlike a state, which confers citizenship, the concept of nationhood - as an idea of a people
linked by bonds of language, history and culture - is rather more fluid.
Sometimes, a people living across two states may readily identify as a single nation.
At other times, two people who once shared historical bonds of language and culture
may come to view themselves as wholly distinct.
But, sometimes, a disagreement can emerge.
While one group views another as part of a single nation, the other sees itself as separate.
Perhaps the best contemporary example of this is the dispute between Bulgaria and
North Macedonia over the exact nature of their relationship.
In recent years, the issue has become steadily more important - to
the point that it's now derailing North Macedonia's path towards EU membership.
Bulgaria and North Macedonia lie in Southeast Europe.
At 110,000 square kilometres, or around 40,000 square miles,
Bulgaria is the 103rd largest of the 193 members of the United Nations.
To its immediate west lies North Macedonia.
At 26,000 square kilometres, or 10,000 square miles, it is the 145th largest UN member.
While Bulgaria's population currently stands at around 7 million, North Macedonia,
which hasn't held a census since 2002, is believed to have a population in the region of 2.1 million.
In both cases, the population is predominantly slavic speaking Christian Orthodox.
However, both countries also have significant non-slavic Muslim minorities.
In Bulgaria, ethnic Turks make up around nine percent of the population.
In North Macedonia, ethnic Albanians are now thought to be around 35 percent of the population.
This is one of those issues where the question of history and origins is particularly fraught.
Both countries are increasingly pointing to different ethnolinguistic origins.
They also hold increasingly divergent interpretations of the past.
However, for our purposes, the story really begins
with the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century.
Having once controlled most of Southeast Europe, it was now collapsing.
In 1878, the Treaty of Berlin established the Principality of Bulgaria
as an autonomous state within the Ottoman Empire.
From the start, the nascent Bulgarian state laid claim to several neighbouring
areas still under direct Ottoman rule.
As well as Thrace, to its immediate south, it also viewed Macedonia, to its west and southwest,
as part of its national territory.
In the 1890s, a nationalist movement - the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization
(VMRO) - emerged dedicated to the liberation of the region.
Crucially, though, Macedonia was also claimed by neighbouring Greece and Serbia.
In 1912, Bulgaria, which had by now won its full independence,
allied with Greece, Serbia and Montenegro to force the Ottoman Empire out of Europe.
But while Bulgaria was able to capture Thrace, thus giving it vital strategic
access to the Mediterranean, it only took a small part of Macedonia.
The vast majority was instead captured by Greek and Serb forces.
Undeterred, Bulgaria then sided with Germany during the First
World War and was able to capture the Serbian-held part of Macedonia.
But its control lasted just a few short years.
In September 1918, Serbia retook the region.
Then, as part of Serbia,
the area would go on to become a part of the newly established Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
Despite this, Bulgaria still harboured claims to the territory and during the
Second World War it sided with Nazi Germany and again occupied most of Serbian Macedonia,
alongside parts of Greek Macedonia.
But, again, its control would be short-lived.
As the war drew to a closed, it switched sides and was forced to relinquish the territory.
The Second World War marked a crucial turning point in the story.
Rather than be reintegrated back into Serbia,
as before, the northern part of Macedonia now gained autonomy.
As what would eventually become the Socialist Republic of Macedonia,
it became one of the six constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
And in the years that followed a conscious effort was made to foster a wholly distinct
macedonian identity; a process that emphasised a very different and distinct relationship, history,
language and culture to neighbouring Bulgaria.
In the 1970s, Macedonian - although mutually intelligible with Bulgarian - was
officially registered as a separate language by the United Nations.
This sense of nationhood would come to the fore as
yYugoslavia disintegrated at the start of the 1990s.
On 8 September 1991, Socialist Macedonia overwhelmingly voted to break away
and become a separate sovereign state: the Republic of Macedonia.
This immediately sparked a dispute with neighbouring Greece.
Accusing the new country of harbouring territorial claims against its region
of Macedonia, Athens blocked its path to membership of several organisations,
including the European Union, until a new name could be agreed.
After almost 30 years of UN mediation, Athens and Skopje
finally reached an agreement on the name in June 2018.
The Republic of Macedonia - or the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, FYROM,
as it was officially known at the United Nations - now became the Republic of North Macedonia .
The news was greeted with relief in many circles, not least of all because it meant
that the country could at long last open European Union accession talks;
a key step in further stabilisation of the wider Western Balkans region.
However, the jubilation would be short-lived.
Almost as soon as the issue with Greece was resolved,
another identity dispute - this time with Bulgaria - came to international attention.
Unlike Greece, Bulgaria didn't dispute the country's name.
Nor did it contest the existence of a Macedonian state.
Indeed, Bulgaria was the first country in the world to recognise the new Republic of Macedonia.
Instead, it disputed the existence of a separate Macedonian nation.
As Bulgaria saw it, the slavic population of Macedonia was in fact part of the wider
Bulgarian nation and the Macedonian language was a dialect of Bulgarian.
On top of this, relations were also soured by a clause in the Macedonian Constitution
that allowed the country to protect the interests of Macedonians living in neighbouring states.
Quite apart from denying the existence of a separate Macedonian community on its soil,
Bulgaria saw this as providing a potential pretext
for interference in its domestic affairs, if not a claim to its territory.
In 1999, the two countries signed a landmark
11-point joint declaration that appeared to settle the matter.
As well as formally renouncing any claim to one another's territory, Macedonia declared
that nothing in its constitution could be interpreted as a basis for interfering in
the internal affairs of Bulgaria to defend any people who were not Macedonian citizens.
Meanwhile, by explicitly acknowledging that the declaration was being concluded
in Bulgarian and Macedonian, Bulgaria appeared to settle the language issue.
But, despite the agreement, tensions continued in the years that followed.
In Macedonia, a nationalist government took power that seemed determined to
ratchet up tensions with both Bulgaria and Greece.
For example, the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle, which was dedicated to telling the
story of the country's independence, presented Bulgaria in a particularly negative light.
Meanwhile, the two countries fell into an increasingly acrimonious dispute
over the national identity of some of the key members of the VMRO;
such as Gotse Delchev, one of the Organisation's leading heroes.
These disputes were also exacerbated by the fact that Bulgaria, which joined the European
Union in 2007, now began to threaten to block the start of EU accession talks with Macedonia
unless an agreement could be reached on these key points of difference.
In 2017, the situation appeared to ease after a new, more moderate,
government took power in Macedonia.
On 1 August 2017, the two countries signed a friendship treaty.
As well as again recognising one another's territorial integrity,
they announced a joint commission to address historical differences and controversies.
However, little progress was made in the period that followed.
As a result, in October 2019, the Bulgarian Government announced a
list of over 20 demands that had to be met before
it would allow the start of EU accession talks with what was now North Macedonia.
It also advised the European Union to stop referring to the Macedonian language and
instead refer to 'the official language of the Republic of North Macedonia'.
A year later, and against a backdrop of looming elections and growing anti-government protests,
Sofia carried out its threats and vetoed the start of membership negotiations with North Macedonia.
Widely seen as being driven by narrow nationalist reasons,
the move was heavily criticised by Bulgaria's European partners.
After having resolved the three decades name issue with Greece,
they were now incensed by Bulgaria's decision to introduce another identity dispute.
Meanwhile, the decision was also met with anger in Skopje.
As Nikola Dimitrov, the deputy prime minister, explained:
"Who we are is our business. It's a question for the Macedonian people.
We think that this should by no means be a precondition for our European future."
In the six months that followed, little further progress was made.
Although the Bulgarian Government was ousted in a general election,
the new caretaker administration also made it clear that it wouldn't alter course.
Even a last-minute flurry of negotiations between the two governments, which saw the
prime minister of North Macedonia lead a delegation to the Bulgarian capital,
failed to produce a breakthrough.
On 22 June 2021, Bulgaria again blocked the opening
of formal EU accession talks with North Macedonia.
Meanwhile, Sofia has now lost the public relations battle over the issue.
EU patience has run out.
As one European diplomat put it, "everybody is
fed up with Bulgaria's stance on North Macedonia. It's incomprehensible,
indefensible and destabilises the Western Balkans. Bulgaria is losing friends at high speed."
The dispute between Bulgaria and North Macedonia raises some
fascinating questions about national identity in modern international relations.
Although Bulgaria regarded Macedonia as an integral part of its territory,
and made repeated efforts to seize it during the first part of the 20th century,
today it seemingly accepts the existence of a sovereign state of North Macedonia.
However, at the same time,
it seems wholly unable to accept the notion of a distinct Macedonian national identity.
In part, this is down to a sense that the Macedonian identity
only emerged as a part of a deliberate Yugoslav policy aimed at demonising Bulgaria.
As Sofia sees it, whether they appreciate it or not,
the slavic Macedonians are really and truly Bulgarians.
In contrast, the Macedonians argue that whether Bulgaria wants to accept it or not,
they have their own separate national identity that must be acknowledged and respected.
Of course, the greatest irony in all this is that it's now Bulgaria's behaviour
that's doing more than anything to cement that Macedonian identity.
I hope you found that interesting. If so, here are some more videos that you might like.
Thanks so much for watching and see you in the next video.