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 Bulgaria |  North Macedonia |
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Bilateral relations exist between theRepublic of Bulgaria and theRepublic of North Macedonia. Both countries are members of theCouncil of Europe, andNATO. Bulgaria is a member of theEuropean Union, North Macedonia has been anofficial candidate to join the EU since 2005. While Bulgaria had been the first country to recognize the independence of its neighbour in 1992 and both states signed a friendship treaty in 2017, North Macedonia and Bulgaria still have complicated neighborly relations: the Bulgarian factor is known in Macedonian politics as"B-complex".[1] European politics have been adding to the complexity of constellations.[2][3][4]
In 2020, Bulgaria offered a compromise and agreed to recognize the Macedonian language and national identity if North Macedonia would recognize both nations and languages have common historical roots. This proposal was rejected by North Macedonia as threatening. The acknowledgement of Bulgarian influence on Macedonian history is highly problematic for many Macedonians, because it clashes with the post-WWII Yugoslav Macedonian nation-building narrative, which was based on a deeply anti-Bulgarian stance. Another revisionist strand of Macedonian historiography is thattheir national history had already beentaken earlier by the Bulgarian national historiography.[5] The resurgence ofBulgarian irredentism due to the deepening of chauvinism and national historical myths in post-Communist Bulgaria has awarded Macedonia a sacred place in Bulgarian nationalism, as Bulgarians are frustrated with the existence of aMacedonian nation, which they consider "artificial", and of aMacedonian language, which theyconsider a dialect of Bulgarian.[6]
On January 15, 1992, Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the then-Republic of Macedonia.[7] Bulgaria has however refused to recognize the existence of a separate ethnic Macedonian nation[8][9][10] and a separate Macedonian language. It argues thatethnic Macedonians are a subgroup of theBulgarian nation,[11][12][13] and that theMacedonian language is aBulgarian dialect.[14][15][16] This leads to some complications when signing treaties between the two countries. Such treaties are signed with this long phrase at the end: "done in theofficial languages of the two states—theBulgarian language, according to theConstitution of the Republic of Bulgaria, and theMacedonian language, according to theConstitution of the Republic of North Macedonia".[17] On the other hand, Skopje insists on the presence of a Macedonian community in Bulgaria, with some circles stating 750,000 'ethnic Macedonians' there[18] and treats as "ethnic Macedonians" a number of figures from Bulgarian history from the region during the period from the 9th century to the end of theSecond World War. North Macedonia has developed its relations with Bulgaria in the political, economic, and military spheres. The governments of the two countries have worked to improve business relations. Bulgaria has also donated tanks, artillery, and other military technology to the Army of North Macedonia. The rules governing good neighbourly relations agreed between Bulgaria and North Macedonia were set in theJoint Declaration of February 22, 1999 reaffirmed by a joint memorandum signed on January 22, 2008, in Sofia.[19]
Reacting to the publication of a controversial encyclopedia by theMacedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MANU) in 2009, Bulgaria warned that "it is unacceptable for a country aspirant for NATO and EU membership to resort to terminology typical for the ideology of the Cold War era," and that the encyclopedia "gives no contribution to the strengthening of the neighborly relations and curbing down of 'hate speech'."[20][21][22][23][24] In connection with the administrative, police and other types of pressure allegedly being exercised on citizens of Bulgaria and citizens of North Macedonia with Bulgarian self-identification in North Macedonia, on August 4, 2009, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry declared that "Bulgaria will examine the approach of the Macedonian side in such cases as one of the criteria on the basis of which to assess the country's readiness to make the changes that would allow the European integration of the Republic of North Macedonia."[25] Bulgaria has proposed to sign a treaty (based on that 1999 Joint Declaration) guaranteeing the good neighbourly relations between the two countries, in order to enable Bulgarian support for the accession of North Macedonia to theEuropean Union.[26][27] During the last few years, thousands of citizens of North Macedonia have applied for Bulgarian citizenship (amongst them North Macedonia's former PMLjubco Georgievski[28]), with more than 90,000 having already receivedBulgarian passports. In order to obtain the passport, the citizens of North Macedonia who apply for Bulgarian citizenship must prove that they have Bulgarian origins and a Bulgarian national consciousness. Between January 1 to November 18, 2011, the Bulgarian Council for citizenship considered 22,241 applications for citizenship, of which 13,607 were approved.[29][30][31]
The Governments of Bulgaria and North Macedonia signed afriendship treaty to bolster the relations between the two Balkan states on 1 August, 2017.[32] The so-calledTreaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness and Cooperation was ratified by the Parliaments of the Republic of North Macedonia and Bulgaria on 15 and 18 January 2018, respectively.[33] Ajoint 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. According to the reports, this commission has made little progress in its work for a period of one year.[34]
In October 2019, Bulgaria set out a "framework position", warning that it would block the EU accession process unless North Macedonia fulfilled a number of demands regarding what Bulgaria perceived as "anti-Bulgarian ideology" in the country.[35] In October 2020, Bulgaria offered a compromise and agreed to recognize the Macedonian language and Macedonian identity if North Macedonia recognizes that they historically had Bulgarian roots. Foreign MinisterEkaterina Zaharieva said that "just as we are ready to acknowledge the reality, so they must acknowledge the past."[36] 30 Bulgarian historians, scholars and professors published a letter opposing the memorandum sent by the Bulgarian government to EU member states, in which they argued that Macedonian ethnogenesis is similar to that of other nations and rejected its presentation as a product of "Yugoslav propaganda" along with the official Bulgarian interpretation of a common Bulgaro-Macedonian history as unilaterally Bulgarian.[37] The Bulgarian proposal was rejected by North Macedonia. Macedonian PresidentPendarovski and Prime Minister Zaev announced that they were neither negotiating nor would ever negotiate whether the Macedonian language and identity were related historically to Bulgaria.[38] As a result, 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.[39] Germany and the EU institutions criticized Sofia's unconstructive behavior.[40] According to Polish political scientistTomasz Kamusella, Bulgaria's EU membership should not be weaponized as an instrument of pressure onEU candidate states to spread Bulgarian ethnopolitical influence across the region, fromMoldova toNorth Macedonia andAlbania.[41]
In an interview with Bulgarian media in November 2020, Prime MinisterZoran Zaev acknowledged many historical facts about the common history of both peoples that have been altered and concealed for decades in North Macedonia.[42] The interview sparked controversy and was followed by a wave of nationalism in Skopje,[43] as well by protests demanding Zaev's resignation.[44] According to the opinion of the former Macedonian Prime MinisterLjubčo Georgievski, who insists on the Bulgarian roots of the Macedonians, these reactions were the result of ignorance, hypocrisy or politicking.[45] He noted that the “deep state” in North Macedonia disrupted the normal relations between the two countries. It built hatred and enmity towards Bulgaria. On the other hand, another former Prime MinisterVlado Buckovski, who was appointed as Zaev's envoy to Bulgaria, also had strongpro-Bulgarian positions and claims Macedonians and Bulgarians were a single people, separated intentionally by the Yugoslav policy during the 20th century. Expressions of anti-Bulgarian sentiment remain a serious concern with the repeated burning of Bulgarian flags.[46][47] These actions have been condemned strongly byStevo Pendarovski, President of North Macedonia, and byEkaterina Zakharieva, Foreign Minister of Bulgaria.[48]
In late March 2021, after it was discovered that the Macedonian government underZoran Zaev had been funding an institute called the International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) between 2017 and 2020 a scandal erupted in Bulgaria.[49][50] IFIMES had published a number of articles describing Bulgaria andGermany as “mafia states interested inNazism”.[49][50] This was perceived in Bulgaria as a defamation campaign funded by North Macedonia in order to discredit Bulgaria in front of itsEU partners.[51][52] The government of North Macedonia has denied these Bulgarian claims.[53]
On 24 January, 2022, the two new prime ministers,Kiril Petkov of Bulgaria andDimitar Kovačevski of North Macedonia, met inSkopje, seeking to improve relations talks and discussingEU negotiations and other issues to be resolved.[54] Five months later, on 24 June 2022, Bulgaria's parliament approved the lifting of the country's veto on openingEU accession talks with North Macedonia.[55]
Consequently, the Bulgarian anticommunist president and government started repeating scholarly clichés firmly established during the nationalist-communist regime of Todor Zhivkov.
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