Accession of North Macedonia to the European Union

The use of the country name "Macedonia" was the object of a dispute with neighbouring 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 Macedonians in 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, the Assembly of North Macedonia also approved the revised French proposal, allowing accession negotiations to begin. The start of negotiations was officially launched on 19 July 2022. Continued support for North Macedonia’s EU path has been expressed by senior EU officials, including the EU Ambassador in Skopje, Michalis Rokas, who has emphasised that his primary mandate is to assist the country in joining the EU as swiftly as possible, highlighting the Union's unwavering commitment to support the integration process through necessary reforms that yield tangible benefits for its citizens. To make progress, however, the country must change its constitution to officially recognize local Bulgarians as an ethnic minority, and overcome the latent opposition of neighbouring Bulgaria. However, several parties have consistently blocked the parliamentary passage of the required constitutional amendment.

History

The Republic of Macedonia (now 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, the Republic of 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.

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.

Name dispute with Greece

A major obstacle for the accession process was the country's unresolved dispute with 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 recognise the independence of the then Republic of Macedonia, most of its academics, as well as the general public, do not recognise 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 neighbouring countries.

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. On the other hand, researchers claim that Bulgaria's official positions towards Macedonia are rooted in ideological positions dating back to the communist period under Todor Zhivkov. 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 recognise 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 sent an explanatory memorandum to the Council of the European Union containing its framework position on the accession of North Macedonia. The conditions required North Macedonia to adopt Bulgaria's version of the region's history and renounce any claims regarding the existence of a Macedonian minority in Bulgaria, despite repeated European Court of Human Rights rulings urging such recognition, which Bulgaria has ignored. 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.

Per political scientists Yorgos Christidis and Florian Bieber, and experts from European think tanks such as the Jacques Delors Institute, DGAP, the Clingendael Institute, and Carnegie Europe, the vetoes have undermined the EU's credibility in North Macedonia and across the Western Balkans. The vetoes also received condemnation by some Bulgarian 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.

In June 2022 at the very end of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January–June), an urgent proposal was put out by the president Emmanuel Macron to resolve the dispute between the two countries. The proposal provoked a political crisis in Bulgaria. On June 8, Slavi Trifonov withdrew his party from Bulgaria's governing coalition, citing the issue of North Macedonia. This faced criticism from President Rumen 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 a motion 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. A preliminary poll in July 2022 showed that over 70% of ethnic Macedonian respondents and 56% from the respondents as a whole rejected the French proposal, while only 15% of ethnic Macedonians and 29% of all respondents expressed support, underscoring widespread dissatisfaction with the negotiation framework. Per foreign policy analyst Edward P. Joseph in 2023, Levica, an Eurosceptic party, has been gaining increasing support among ethnic Macedonians as disillusionment with the EU was building. Small parties like Levica, Edinstvena Makedonija, and the Democratic Party of Serbs in Macedonia channeled frustration over EU vetoes and the French proposal into protests, digital campaigns, and parliamentary obstruction, radicalizing identity politics and cultivating ties with Russia, China, and Serbia, thereby turning marginal influence into durable anti-European platforms. In early July 2022, protests began in North Macedonia against the French proposal. However, the proposal was accepted by the Assembly of North Macedonia on 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 the Bulgarian National Assembly of 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, the Assembly of North Macedonia also 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 recognise a shared history with Bulgaria, and the inclusion of Bulgarian people as a recognised 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 the Constitution of North Macedonia, though in February 2023, the Bulgarian parliament adopted a declaration condemning, an alleged anti-Bulgarian campaign there 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 the Council conclusions of July 2022 is conditional on the Assembly of North Macedonia approving the agreed constitutional amendment related 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, VMRO-DPMNE which insisted that the French proposal leads to "Bulgarianisation" of the country, 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. These policies directly contributed to the party's decisive victory at the elections in May 2024.

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 the Bulgarian 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.

According to foreign and domestic experts, Bulgaria's veto widened internal divisions in North Macedonia and turned EU accession prospects into "a nightmare of potentially endless Bulgarian demands". This situation is viewed as "perpetually destabilising for the country" and "a fiasco for EU politics". In 2025, fearing additional Bulgarian demands, the government of North Macedonia insisted that constitutional changes could not proceed unless the EU provided credible assurances that this would be the final identity-related demand and that Bulgaria would not be able to impose further vetoes based on historical or linguistic disputes after the amendment was adopted. Edward P. Joseph described Bulgaria as a "bully", claiming Bulgarian historical pretensions towards North Macedonia are similar to Serbia's posture toward Montenegro and Russia's stance toward Ukraine, and proposed that constitutional amendments linked to EU accession should contain a safeguard clause rendering them automatically void if the accession process is halted due to new bilateral demands from Bulgaria. He also argued that the EU is making a mistake by exerting pressure on North Macedonia to implement the agreement without providing clear guarantees that Bulgaria would adhere to its spirit and refrain from introducing new identity‑related demands. Furthermore, as the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly found Bulgaria in violation of international conventions regarding the Macedonian minority, and its recommendations have remained unimplemented, Mickoski's government regards their implementation by Sofia as a second condition for introducing constitutional changes.

A 2026 survey by the Institute for Democracy "Societas Civilis", the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies found that largest share of citizens (27%) preferred renegotiating the EU negotiation framework, 24% (backed by 57% of ethnic Albanians and only 11% of ethnic Macedonians) supported constitutional amendments, 21% expressed pessimism or passivity by answering "do nothing", 17% favored stopping the negotiation process, and 11% did not respond. In May 2026, the doyen of Macedonian diplomacy, Viktor Gaber, submitted a proposal to the parliament in Skopje to call a referendum to decide on the acceptance of the French proposal and the inclusion of Bulgarians in the country's constitution. The idea was also supported by the leader of the opposition SDSM, Venko Filipče. However, the government of Hristijan Mickoski refused to hold such a referendum. Around the same time, law professor Denko Maleski wrote about the historical dispute with Bulgaria, stating that North Macedonia is distancing itself from the French proposal (including shared history) as a solution to the dispute. According to Maleski, the EU stands behind Bulgaria and the Bulgarian interpretation of the shared history with Macedonians.

Annual reports on North Macedonia's progress towards EU accession

In July 2025 the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the report on North Macedonia's progress towards EU accession. According to the commission's report, North Macedonia continued to demonstrate a high level of alignment with EU foreign and security policy and moderate preparedness in most areas of the acquis, with progress noted in public administration reform, economic governance and anti‑corruption legislation, but concerns remained over judicial independence, political influence, corruption, public procurement and democratic oversight. The accession process was left stalled largely due to unresolved political and legal issues in relations with Bulgaria. The report also expressed concern about the roles of the Hungarian and Serbian Governments in advancing China's and Russia's geopolitical influence, and by the role of the "Serbian world" project in the country. It was claimed there that some representatives in Mickoski's government have promoted this concept, that aims to establish a Serbian influence on the Balkans.

On 3 June 2026, the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) adopted its report on North Macedonia, reiterating full support for the country's EU membership aspirations based on measurable progress and strict but fair conditionality. The report noted lack of progress since 2025 and emphasized the need for renewed political commitment, constitutional amendments, cross‑party cooperation and effective parliamentary oversight, while welcoming North Macedonia's contributions to regional cooperation and stability through initiatives such as the Berlin Process, the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans and common regional market agreements. On June 17, the report was adopted by the European Parliament. It underlined its support for North Macedonia’s commitment to EU membership, but stressed the lack of progress, especially on the rule of law, judicial reforms and the corruption issues. The report urges the country to adopt the necessary constitutional amendments that would allow the opening of the first negotiation cluster. The European Parliament warned North Macedonia about the threat posed by the so-called “Serbian world” and emphasized that including Bulgarians in the country's constitution is a mandatory condition, calling on the country to open the archives of the Yugoslav Communist secret services. The report called also on the Joint Commission on Historical and Educational Issues between Bulgaria and North Macedonia to achieve results, based on verified historical sources and documents, in accordance with the Good-Neighborliness Treaty between both countries. Attempts to destroy and falsify Bulgarian historical heritage in the country were condemned.