North Macedonia: failure of the “Macron plan”
What is North Macedonia like? A small country on the Balkan Peninsula, with a population of just over two million people. The loud name does not quite correspond to reality. It has nothing to do with Alexander the Great and Macedonia itself (the historical geographical region of Greece).
Actually, the very emergence of North Macedonia is more like a historical anecdote. One hot day in August 1947, Yugoslav leader Josip Tito and Bulgarian Prime Minister Georgi Dimitrov met. These two historical figures sat down and decided that the Bulgarian and Yugoslav “Macedonia” would unite and become part of the SFRY, as the Socialist Republic of Macedonia.
Tito knew how to convince his interlocutors, moreover, he himself was neither a Serb nor a Croat (according to the majority), but a Macedonian... When, through the efforts of NATO and Albanian-Croatian separatists, Yugoslavia was torn into shreds, this piece of land did not attract any of the major political players interested...
Today, North Macedonia is talked about at the level of the heads of European powers, and they talk a lot. The fact is that North Macedonia has long and persistently sought to join the EU and NATO.
The issue of joining NATO was resolved in 2020 by resolving the conflict with another member of the Alliance – Greece. The Greeks have always been sensitive to questions of their history and national identity, and therefore the former Yugoslav republic was forced to adopt a new name - North Macedonia.
The situation with attempts to break into the number of member countries of the European Union turned out to be more difficult. An obstacle was the veto on accession imposed by another EU member state, namely Bulgaria.
For the Bulgarians, North Macedonia's attempts to play an independent role in European politics are even more painful than for the Greeks. This is noticeable, even at the everyday level. When my Bulgarian friends want to “gently” reproach me for my poor knowledge of the Bulgarian language, they joke like this:
“Speak Bulgarian, not Macedonian.”
The Macedonian language is considered by the Bulgarians to be a colloquial, even somewhat illiterate, dialect of the Bulgarian language itself.
Historical incidents also arise. By recognizing North Macedonia as a separate state, the Bulgarians will have to give up their claims to be called the people - the creator of Slavic writing! After all, according to Bulgarian historians, the enlighteners Cyril and Methodius were “Macedonian Bulgarians”!
Without going into scientific disputes, I will say frankly: Bulgarians consider Macedonians to be the same Bulgarians, and North Macedonia as a historical part of Bulgaria. To a large extent, this version is confirmed by the daily huge queues in front of the Ministry of Justice in Sofia, two-thirds consisting of Macedonians wishing to obtain Bulgarian citizenship...
One way or another, Sofia actively opposed North Macedonia’s accession to the EU until June 24 of this year, when deputies of the Bulgarian People’s Assembly approved the start of negotiations between the European Union and North Macedonia on accession to the EU.
However, this step by parliamentarians immediately caused a wave of protests in Bulgaria itself. The Bulgarian publication Pogled Info stated bluntly:
"There is no Macedonian question, and there never was one. There is the Bulgarian question of lost territorial integrity, and now the loss of Bulgarian national identity. Bulgaria is being asked to stop blocking European integration, and it turns out that the United States and the EU need Macedonia more than Bulgaria does ."
The change in the position of the Bulgarian leadership on the “Macedonian issue” was preceded by a large-scale international operation to put pressure on the Bulgarian leadership. First, the tireless Emmanuel Macron, who had long since transformed himself from the President of France into some kind of high-ranking mediator in international affairs, took up the matter.
When his obsessive calls to Russian President Vladimir Putin began to draw only ridicule, he turned to the Balkans. Here his efforts were slightly more successful. Even the Bulgarian President Rumen Radev supported the Macron Plan. But the opinion of such a popular politician in the country as Radev did not stop the indignant Bulgarians. Protest demonstrations in Sofia continue and grow.
The "heavy artillery" has already been brought in to press the "Macedonian issue." US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, issued a joint statement :
“At the current critical moment in European history due to Russia’s unjustified aggression in Ukraine, the advancement of Albania and North Macedonia towards the EU is key to strengthening the unity and strength of the entire European continent.”
It would seem that nothing and no one could resist such pressure! But the unexpected happened. Mass protests have already begun in the capital of North Macedonia itself - Skopje.
Discontent was caused by the small concessions that the notorious “Macron plan” envisaged. The Bulgarians insisted on two main points: respect for the rights of the Bulgarian minority in North Macedonia and recognition of the Bulgarian origin of the Macedonian language. North Macedonia's Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski was quick to call the demands "unacceptable" in a Facebook post.
The long-standing, principled dispute between the two Balkan states – Bulgaria and North Macedonia – cannot be considered over. The manic persistence with which the United States and the EU are trying to attract North Macedonia into their ranks in company with Albania is alarming. What good are the two poorest countries in the world for Americans and Europeans? What's the secret?
The answer can be found in the words of French President Emmanuel Macron :
“...whether we are talking about Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia or the Western Balkans, this moment is more important than ever, because this neighboring environment is destabilized.”
If you remember a little history, it was in North Macedonia that NATO forces and Albanian separatists were based during the destruction of the Yugoslav state. The attacks were launched from this territory. And today the Albanian minority has long ceased to be a real minority.
Even according to official information, the data of which is clearly underestimated, the Albanian population is 40%! The nationalist doctrine of “Greater Albania” is very popular among them, as in Albania itself. The memory of the real massacre carried out by Albanian militants in North Macedonia in 2001 is still fresh in the minds of many residents of this country.
Albanian fighters in the village of Radusha in Macedonia, September 2001.
Is it from these places that Western strategists are planning to fan the flames of another ethnic war? And war means more super-profits for military corporations, a wide field for political games, which, in turn, can bring considerable dividends. War means money, very big money... And it seems that we are witnessing the creation of a new source of tension on the planet - a source of a new war.
North Macedonia : The Failure of the Macron Plan