ATTITUDE
Risto Nikovski
The summit of the Balkan candidates with the European Union, held in Tivat in June, will be remembered! The reason is the complete turnaround that Brussels announced regarding the enlargement. With the non-paper of Friedrich Merz and Emmanuel Macron, the two main members publicly disclosed that the Union is stopping the expansion as before and hinted at ideas for some kind of gradual rapprochement of the candidates. And that, it seems, will never lead to full membership. Or, possibly, it could happen in the very distant future. That is the reality. Interpretations that this is a way to accelerate expansion are valid only for the naive.
If not, why would Berlin and Paris consider some new admissions system? Why would the previous way be abandoned if there are no radical and extremely negative changes in the treatment of candidates? And, one is thinking about something undefined, about a process without a clear end! Such a thing cannot be positive!
After all, the ideas from the non-paper are also a kind of upgrade of the negotiating framework, imposed by Macron, in 2020. Its details have not yet come to the fore in practice, but it is clear that they are practically insurmountable for membership candidates! And therefore, this turn is very logical because, according to official polls from a few years ago, 62 percent of the French and 61 percent of the Germans were against EU enlargement. There should be no doubts that now those percentages have only increased.
Overall, the idea launched by Merz and Macron in Tivat means the creation of some kind of still undefined – second league! Part of it is the already formed European Political Community, invented by Macron (2022), in which all European states (47) are members, as well as the four pillars announced by Ursula von der Leyen a few years ago.
At the same time, for “consolation”, it was almost openly announced in Tivat that Montenegro could become a member by 2030 or some year plus or minus! Let us remind you that Podgorica has been negotiating since 2012! Its reception is not accidental, we mentioned it many years ago. It is Brussels political marketing at its best. Through Montenegro, with its approximately 600,000 inhabitants, which is equal to a larger quarter in Brussels or Berlin, the EU “demonstrates” that enlargement is not dead and, in parallel, it is – burying it!
Only Croatia can dispute the admission of Montenegro, due to open problems with it. The issue with the undefined border at Prevlaka is crucial, but Brussels will find a solution. This is what he did between Croatia and Slovenia, 15 years ago, through international arbitration, and the problem is still not resolved! For Macedonia, there were no such opportunities, because behind our blockades there is a key international factor. They are not the result of the inventions of Athena and Sophia, which are only tools in other people’s hands. Of course, they also have their own interests.
Otherwise, after the falsely launched optimism in Tivat regarding the enlargement, this summit most resembles the one held in Thessaloniki in 2003. And then Brussels announced the rapid admission of the Balkan states and – what happened? Absolutely nothing. After 10 years, in 2013 only Croatia was admitted. Since then there have been no new members, and it will continue!
With one exception?
Chancellor Mertz started with a similar innovation in May, when he sent a letter to EU members about Ukraine. According to him, Ukraine should receive “associate membership in the EU”, participate in the meetings of the European Council and the Council of the EU, but without the right to vote, have an associate commissioner and associate members of the EP… This is a concrete proposal of Merz, while in Tivat, with Macron, they launched only an idea. How the two will fare in Brussels, where everything is already upside down – we’ll see.
Otherwise, in diplomacy, non-paper is placed only in cases where it is required – salvation! It was invented when international conferences were in hopeless situations, and the participants shared ideas for a way out, but without personal exposure. That is why it is called – non-paper. Basically, they are neither documents nor proposals, but only – wild ideas. This particular case shows that the Union is also in chaos, not only regarding enlargement, and this means that a way out of the impasse is being sought! It is unusual that two officials are behind it. Therefore, this non-paper can be considered as something more than an idea, but not, however, an official proposal. If the authors wanted to propose something, they wouldn’t call it a non-paper! And in Tivat, in the end, the Brussels bureaucracy seems to have distanced itself from the ideas?
The fate of the presented ideas will be decided first by the Brussels bureaucracy, and then by all member states. No one can even guess what will be drunk in the end. The only thing that is certain is that the Union must be deeply reformed, that it will no longer expand as before, that it is in a severe, almost hopeless institutional crisis, and these are desperate attempts to find a way out. Brussels is clearly in a panic! There were no results, the expansion failed, and that was their main reason for bragging.
According to analyzes in foreign media, the ideas from the non-paper are valid for the Balkan states and Moldova. Second, they specifically apply only to countries that are already negotiating. Third, countries that temporarily close a certain chapter will be able to progress in that area in Brussels. Fourth, it means that these ideas will apply to Montenegro, if not accepted, to Albania, Serbia and Moldova, which, together with Ukraine, formally started negotiations in 2024, but only now are announcing the opening of chapters. Fifth, these ideas will hardly touch Serbia, which has been negotiating since 2014, but is under a special regime because of Kosovo. Its relations with Russia and China are also a problem. Sixth, as it seems, at least for now, these ideas do not apply to us, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Crucially, the ideas elaborated in the non-paper are highly unacceptable to us. That must be clear to us. If the ideas go through Brussels as a new system for (some kind of!) enlargement, we will very likely be faced with a fait accompli – if you want to be included, you must change the Constitution immediately, to start the negotiations! If not, you’re out! It will be a new ultimatum. If we accept, we will no longer have an alternative to cancel the second protocol and thus cancel the obligation to change the Constitution and the framework for negotiations, through which Macedonia will never get closer to Brussels.
In such a case, we will become a heavy victim of the Bulgarian phantasmagorias and historical syndromes, according to which the negotiating framework is also a commodity. According to her, we will negotiate with Sofia, not Brussels, and the main criterion will be the results of the historical commission! This means that if we do not accept the Bulgarian obsessions that we are “Bulgarians by birth”, with a language that is their dialect and a common Bulgarian history, the Union will be, and will remain, unattainable for us.
Therefore, as a matter of urgency, Macedonia must cancel the second protocol with Bulgaria and immediately after that establish relations with Sofia on a reciprocal basis (Bulgarians with us, Macedonians with them). It must be crystal clear to us that until we make Sofia “swallow” that we are a separate Macedonian nation, either through the application of the judgments of the Court of Human Rights, or through some kind of officialization of the existence of Macedonians in Bulgaria (by placing them in the Constitution on a reciprocal basis, or in some official commission for minorities in the Parliament…) – there is no EU for us. Without such a step, there is nothing to look for in Brussels. Bulgaria will never allow our membership unless we swallow their historical syndromes. This is the tragic reality we have brought ourselves into, and now we must save ourselves. No one else can help us. That’s off. There are no guarantees!
We will repeat one more time – tomorrow we change the Constitution, the day after tomorrow it is valid, after a week we start the negotiations and in three months we finish them – we will not get anywhere! The Bulgarian Assembly will never ratify our membership if we do not accept that we are Bulgarians by birth, or rather a second Bulgarian state. Sofia doesn’t hide it anymore!
The conclusion is clear: if in any way Macedonia is included in the new ideas from this non-paper, before clearing the relations with Bulgaria – it will no longer have the possibility to withdraw from the second protocol. We will have to change the constitution immediately and negotiate membership with Sofia. Diplomats say it will be a fait accompli, a done deal, with no possibility of going back. By changing the Constitution, we will formalize the process of our own Bulgarianization, which will take us to the dustbin of history. As a possibility, however, membership in the EU will be brutally terminated. And, as usual, no one will be held accountable for that.
This is an analysis that politicians should not ignore. The fate of the people and the state is at stake. If they don’t believe, but even if they do, they should take top foreign diplomatic experts. We must avoid mistakes that are easily possible, and will bring us incalculable historical consequences. It is an indisputable fact that diplomatic nuances are not sufficiently understood in our country, which is a serious problem. Foreign experts are the solution.
