As EU Fragments, Bulgaria Promises to Support Macedonia's Membership Aspirations

Prime Ministers Boyko Borissov and Zoran Zaev met in Skopje August 1, and inked the "Treaty on friendship, good neighborliness and cooperation" — an agreement intended to end years of diplomatic tension and hasten Macedonia's path to EU and NATO membership.

​The two countries have long not seen eye to eye over a number of issues, including Bulgaria's unwillingness to recognize the status of the Macedonian language, and minority rights.

​Now though, under the terms of the treaty, both countries will renounce all territorial rights against each other, improve economic ties, construct a train line running from Sofia to Skopje, and establish a working group to boost cooperation, which will meet once a year.

The content of school textbooks in both countries will also be analyzed by a joint research team, to ensure objectivity and neutrality on historical matters.

The treaty is significant — while the neighboring Slavic nations have shared linguistic, historical and cultural ties, tensions between the two have often been high.

During World War II, most parts of Yugoslav and Greek Macedonia were annexed by Bulgaria, and local Slavic-speakers (regarded as "Macedonian Bulgarians") were subject to discrimination and repression. After the war, the two were split in half by Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union — and unresolved territorial disputes created by the severance persisted for decades. The breakup of both major federations in the 1990s only exacerbated these disagreements.

The treaty was unanimously endorsed by the Bulgarian parliament, less universally by Macedonia's — leading opposition party VMRO-DPMNE refused to support parts of the document regarding national issues, with party chiefs arguing certain provisions will create serious issues for the country. 

Nonetheless, the treaty makes Macedonia's future EU ascension a much more likely prospect (particularly as Sofia is scheduled to take over the rotating EU presidency in January 2018), although unresolved disputes remain between FYROM and Greece.

Successive Greek governments since the 1940s have objected to the country's name "Macedonia," on the basis their northern neighbor "stole" it from the eponymous Greek province lying directly to the south of the Macedonian-Greek border.

Nonetheless, in June, EU Commissioner for Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn said "new momentum" had been injected into the quarrel, and if progress was made on the issue by autumn, the EU could open accession talks.

Ever since the breakup of Yugoslavia began in June 1991, the EU has been eager to integrate the fallen country's constituent states to its own folds.

Slovenia was the first to join in 2004, but it was only in 2005 the six other successor countries were formally recognized as candidates for membership — and it took until July 2013 for Croatia to become a fully-fledged member state.

As of June 2017, Montengro and Serbia are in negotiations to join the bloc (processes which started in 2012 and 2014 respectively), and Bosnia and Herzegovina has applied for membership. Kosovo has not submitted an official application, but is considered a potential candidate in any event.

​Despite the slow progress of enlargement in the Western Balkans, EU officials have suggested it's "not unrealistic" that the entire expanse could be swallowed up into the bloc before 2024. Given the myriad of political, economic and social issues that bedevil the region, such an objective may be fanciful — unless the EU is willing to overlook major sticking points in order to facilitate its ongoing extension. 

Moreover, such an aspiration fails to acknowledge the major challenges the EU inevitably faces in years to come. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has revealed she was rocked by Brexit, and feared for the future of the EU — although was imbued with fresh hope by the election of Emmanuel Macron in France.

Her hopes may be dashed if a July report on populism in the EU produced by the European Policy Information Centre is remotely accurate. The findings suggest the total number of European voters who support anti-establishment forces stands at around 21 percent — and the authors note such groups hold power in seven member states, a quarter of the bloc overall.

Furthermore, elections are impending in Austria and Italy, and EU-skeptic parties could potentially prevail in both countries. If that comes to pass, there may not be an EU for Macedonia to accede to come 2024 — or if there is, Macedonia could well be one of its last entrants before the bloc withers terminally.