Brussels, 4 December 2021 (MIA) - North Macedonia cannot give in to Bulgaria's demands, and to overcome the veto in the EU some symbolic compromise or mechanism for Sofia to save its reputation will be needed. And such a change requires friendly advice from EU countries to Bulgaria that maybe it should keep in mind all domestic problems and negotiate a way out of this dispute, Florian Bieber, professor and expert on the Balkans, said in an interview with MIA.

However, Bieber says he sees no clear reason to believe that the veto will be unblocked in December, but that nothing is impossible and will depend on signals from Bulgaria and what is happening behind the scenes, given that Germany, which is the biggest supporter is in the transition phase of the government and it remains to be seen what other EU countries will do regarding Bulgaria's position.

Regarding the EU enlargement process, Bieber points out that although he does not consider it dead, it is certainly in a serious crisis and that it has lost the ability to change in the region, emphasizing that there are too many uncertainties and all that the EU has to do offer is membership, which, in his opinion, is not very plausible.

Read below about Zaev’s resignation and the expectations for his successor, the country's European path, Merkel's withdrawal and the new government in Germany, as well as the expectations from the French EU presidency and ratification of the Frontex agreement.

The congress of the ruling party SDSM will be held on December 12, where a new party leader, who will likely be also the PM-designate. Despite his hesitation, Zoran Zaev confirmed that he’s determined to step down. What are your comments?

I think, despite the odyssey of taking the decision, it’s clearly triggered and certainly facilitated by the overall frustration with the key project of getting North Macedonia to start accession talks, and to some degree, it’s a signal for the outside world, for the European partners, that this is what you do when you block a country for too long, that at some point people get frustrated, and also, there may be a level of support maybe within the party that gets weaker, and as a result, you don’t know anymore whether it’s worth pursuing your political career. Certainly, it’s a message that it’s trying to send, but at the same time it’s also the whole odyssey of resigning or not resigning shows weakness of the government as a result of domestic reasons and the way in which the country has not been able to move forward for very frivolous reasons, the Bulgarian veto.

Do you consider Zaev’s decision to step down as wise?

It’s understandable and, as I’ve said previously, I think there’s certainly some virtue signaling that when one resigns from the highest office, they don’t cling onto it at any cost. I think it’s a healthy signal overall, the idea that you don’t have to continue until you’re kicked out of office, or sent to jail or anything else as a PM. So, I think it’s certainly good for a country like North Macedonia, or any country in the region where there’s been a long tradition that people only resign if they are defeated. So, that’s a positive thing, but in a certain way, it’s also giving up to some degree at this point. I presume he would’ve been happier to resign at a moment when the accession talks begin and there’s some success he can rest on. Of course, this is not the case now, and to some degree, one would hope that he could resign with that kind of backdrop. I think what we saw in the odyssey after his first resignation is also that a too premature resignation could endanger the whole government, and not just the government, but with it the entire project, and that, of course, shows that it was not a wise decision to have a rushed resignation without preparing for it. I guess, his withdrawal and now taking a seemingly more orderly resignation is a way to prevent the negative fallout from it.

He said that he would first make sure that the party has the majority before stepping down, but, to you as an outsider, can his resignation in any way destabilize the country and beyond, given that North Macedonia is sort of a beacon of stability in the region despite everything. Many people are concerned that no one is up to the task in the same way. So, could this, in any way, change anything or are we just making it into a bigger deal because we’re so close to the situation?

To some degree, certainly, any success would have to first build up and strengthen their position within the country and get the international reputation, which, of course, Zaev has built because of his principle to pursue European integration. The real question is whether his successor will go in the same direction, make it the same level of priority, or will be less fully committed to it. I expect any successor will be overall committed, but whether they go the same lengths is going to be the question. It’s also an opportunity because the government has lost the local election because the people are disappointed with some of the performance within the country with the reforms, so it’s an opportunity to try to kickstart those as well, and not just to only or mostly focus on EU integration and sometimes neglect some domestic reforms at the same time. So, it’s an opportunity, but it depends on the successor, whether they will be able to live up to that expectation, and also whether they can build on some successes early on so they actually don’t have to fight with fragile coalition they have to keep together as we saw now, and that fragility we’ve seen in the recent weeks is certainly not gone, so there continues to be a risk that it might collapse in the coming months. That could all be preoccupying and not very helpful for getting any reforms on the road.

The General Affairs Council and the summit in which North Macedonia anticipates a lifting of the veto that would start accession negotiations are slated to begin in under two weeks. The Minister of Foreign Affairs said that there is hope. Do you believe this hope is founded?

I have no inside information whatsoever, I haven’t heard anything which would suggest a quick resolution. I think people in the EU are aware that this is an opportunity to start this process and everybody has clearly expressed their frustrations with the Bulgarian position, so none of that is new. I think one of the key challenges is the timing in a certain way, because the German government plays a crucial role in pushing the agenda forward because you have one of the most important countries in the EU in support of enlargement and a country which carries weight, so here is something where I think also the new government has put in its coalition agreement that it wants to start the accession as soon as possible, but it’s not going to take office quick enough to really have an impact on decisions taken until the end of the year. At the moment, there’s going to be a vacuum. It’s not that the outgoing German government doesn’t care about it, but there is a transition between the two. The message is consistent, but the problem is that it’s clear that the rest of the EU doesn’t agree with the Bulgarian position, so what are they going to do about it? That’s where, I think, we’re suffering from a kind of gap. I don’t have a clear reason to believe that this is going to be resolved in December. Again, nothing is impossible, but it depends on signs from Bulgaria and what is maybe going on behind the scenes, but I haven’t seen any signals which would make me optimistic at the moment that it’s going to be resolved before the end of the year. If I’m wrong, I’m going to be very happy.

Bulgaria says that it depends on North Macedonia. What is it that North Macedonia needs to do?

From the Bulgarian position, it was always up to North Macedonia, because the Bulgarian position was always that the country should do something which it wanted to do, so from that point of view, that’s no surprise that that would be the view which the government or anyone in Bulgaria would say. The real point is that the demands which Bulgaria put are completely outrageous, and I don’t see any reason that North Macedonia should fulfill those requirements, or why it’s even morally defensible, and I think several EU countries have said both in public and behind closed doors that this is completely outrageous and unacceptable. In the end, it will require some face-saving mechanism for Bulgaria to drop its veto, some symbolic compromise, and I don’t think it’s up to North Macedonia to change its position, it’s up to Bulgaria and that change requires some friendly advice from EU member states to tell Bulgaria that it has a lot of problems and that maybe it should keep in mind all of these issues it has domestically, and its position in the EU when it puts these issues on the table and negotiate a way out of it. There have been several attempts of compromise of different presidencies. The real question is whether or not the French presidency will try. On one side, France has been publicly very committed to the accession talks because it’s satisfied with the new methodology, but it’s certainly not going to be its priority. In that sense, I think it falls back to the German government to do so with a number of friendly governments to really raise the stakes for Bulgaria, which I think is going to take time.

To follow up to what you said, what kind of face-saving mechanisms could you imagine for Bulgaria, if any?

On certain key issues, I don’t think there’s any way Bulgaria can win, the insistence on the question of the language, for example, is completely unimaginable, that Macedonian is not the language used in EU or negotiations, I think that completely makes no sense. And the question of history, some kind of very broad and non-committal declaration is probably something one could think about, or some process which kicks the issue down the road, which is always the favorite EU solution, but if it helps to unlock the talks, then that’s fine. But I do think that any more substantial concession is unlikely and I don’t think it’s feasible or desirable.

And the other follow up on Germany, we’ve seen that even Merkel didn’t have enough influence on Bulgaria, and the German government now is even less influential than it was, so can we really count on Germany?

I think there are several reasons why there is some reason to be optimistic. First of all, generally, Merkel has been always very reluctant to really put her foot down on these grave abuses of other EU countries, especially when they’re partners with the European People’s Party. Boyko Borissov is the one who started the whole thing and he was her partner in the EPP, and she’s not been critical of Orban, and she’s even been accepting of some of the serious rule of law abuses in Poland. She’s been very tolerant of Vucic’s abuse, so for all her support EU enlargement, she’s never really been critical. I don’t think that she supported the Bulgarian position, but she’s never been really willing to invest political capital into changing it, and I don’t think it failed in the last year or so because of the lack of weight of Germany, but the stakes weren’t high enough. This is always the issue. It’s one thing if the German chancellor says “we’re really unhappy with what Bulgaria is doing, this is really bad” and then the Bulgarian government can either ignore it or continue with it, but at the same time, if there is no real, genuine, tangible political price for it, then I think they can just ignore it. The new government has the Greens in coalition who are much louder about the rule of law, they don’t have partner parties in the region which they have loyalty to, so they can be a lot more outspoken, and if they want to, they can raise the price, and they put rule of law on the top of their agenda, much higher than Merkel did, and this is a rule of law issue as well when it comes to Bulgaria. We can expect for the government to be more forceful than the outgoing one.

Is the enlargement policy dead or dying?

It’s certainly in a terrible condition, no doubt about it, because even if the Bulgarian veto is lifted by the end of the year, the process is not moving forward with the other two countries that are negotiating, so it’s not working there, and there’s no prospect of any serious movement partly because of the domestic situation. There’s also the risk that another country may be vetoed, like Serbia, it could be vetoed by Romania or Croatia. There are so many details which could come in, and I think, to some degree, it’s quite important to keep in mind that if Bulgaria’s comes out as a winner, it raises the risk that others are encouraged, because this is a way to get things done. I hope that Bulgaria will not be successful in its endeavor because it may discourage some of the others from doing the same thing. Then there’s also the question of what happens when some countries get closer, will France again get cold feet? There’s quite a few uncertainties, and though I don’t think the process is dead, but it’s certainly in a serious crisis. It’s lost the ability to change and resolve issues in the region. Look at Serbia and Kosovo. That’s not going to be resolved, there’s no prospect at the moment. The only thing the EU has to offer is membership, and that’s really not that plausible.

I ask this following question often to MPs or politicians but I never get a straight answer, given that the enlargement is weaker, can there be an alternative, parallel process that would bring the same benefits in terms of reforms and funds without subjecting countries to bilateral blockades?

 There are different ideas, but I’m skeptical of some of them, there’s this idea of a common European market which the ESI has been promoting, basically integrating the country in the common market without EU membership as a preliminary or first way. It doesn’t really help with issues of rule of law, that’s one big problem because it’s not substantially covered, but also it’s much more complicated and I’m not sure it’s really going to help. That’s just one part of the story, just one suggestion, and another one, which I think is more promising, but it still doesn’t solve the big questions, is the issue of the stage accession, accession in stages where countries can get to be members in certain steps, which makes it easier to give benefits earlier, but for example, when you first join you don’t get a commissioner, you don’t get veto rights, which deals with the worries that France might have. That process is imaginable, but the key point would be to get around to the question of the veto, and that’s very tricky because even the countries not using the veto so far might be reluctant to give it up because they’re worried that they might need it sometime, so countries like the Netherlands, or Denmark could say they don’t trust the commissioner at the moment because the commissioner is biased and pro-Orban, so we don’t want to be guided in the accession talks exclusively by the commissioner, so we would keep that veto power in our back pocket, so the challenge is to get out of that. Moving in that direction would be more likely than some of these grand plans that seem too ambitious or too big to achieve at the moment, so maybe if the government in Hungary changes next year, which seems like a possibility at least, considering the election, if the authoritarian group in Hungary weakens, then there will be a chance to maybe release or reduce some of those veto powers and streamline the process. There would be less opportunities for abuse and that would help a lot.

I have another technical question, about Frontex, which Bulgaria is still blocking for North Macedonia because of the language because Bulgaria doesn’t want the Macedonian language to appear in the documents even though it appears on every Frontex agreement with the other countries in the region. North Macedonia cannot ratify Frontex because of the language while the EU is facing one of its biggest migration crises and it doesn’t show signs of stopping. How can the EU let this happen? Why doesn’t it put more pressure on Bulgaria? Legally, North Macedonia is not bound by Frontex. What happens if something happens on our borders?

I don’t know why this is the case. I guess the current bilateral arrangements work well enough not to have a reason to really have the urgency to do it. The countries have been able to deal with the assistance in previous years so it seems to be working well enough that you can live with it, and the perverse effect is being pragmatic and goal-oriented reduces the pressure on you to deal with it, which is the ultimate irony. If North Macedonia cancels all bilateral agreements and can’t guarantee the borders until Frontex is ratified, it would draw a lot of interest and a lot of attention all of a sudden.

My last question is related to the security and stability of the region. The UK sent another special representative for the Western Balkans. Johnson says the region is facing the biggest threat in years or decades. What’s your assessment?

There is a serious crisis in the region to some degree, which has a lot to do with what we’ve talked about, the lack of an EU prospect working, the lack of the EU’s ability to solve questions, and that creates opportunities and incentives for political action in the region, to create crises, which is what’s going on. I don’t think a war will happen tomorrow, but even the fact that people are talking about it and that there are fears about it creates a destructive dynamic in the region. I take the situation seriously, it’s good if it triggers interest of countries like Britain, to get them more engaged. It’s ironic because this has been going on for years, so no one is surprised, Dodik’s threats and Vucic’s authoritarian decline, the dispute between Serbia and Kosovo, all of this is nothing new. The question is, it’s one thing to make these declarations about the most serious crisis, but I would like to see a more serious engagement to deal with them, and that’s the real problem. I don’t see a clear strategy. Certainly, the US, the EU and the UK together would develop a common strategy and have a more serious engagement. Things could be done, or they could at least be started, but that’s not yet the case. I’m not sure that recognizing the problem is the first step, but it eliminates itself, and nominating an envoy is not going to be enough. Many of the actors in the region, where the problem is, the Dodiks and Vucics of the region, they also know exactly when to take a step back, when they worry about being fired or dismissed or under sanctions, they take a step back and everyone breathes a sigh of relief and says it wasn’t so bad, we resolved the crisis, and everyone thinks it’s okay again, but then a year later we have another crisis. There is no structural understanding of the causes of this crisis, or a willingness to engage with them because otherwise we’re just going to be seeing this on a regular basis with people saying it wasn’t that bad and it’s okay again. But, if you don’t deal with it, then it’ll just keep happening over and over again, and it gets worse every time because the bottom line, the overall situation gets worse.

Tanja Milevska

Translated and edited by Dragana Knezhevikj