North Macedonia Social Briefing: Prime Minister Zaev Sparks Social Outrage Following Bulgaria’S Veto to Macedonian EU Accession Negotiations Gjorgjioska M

ISSN: 2560-1601

Vol. 34, No. 3 (MK)

November 2020

North Macedonia social briefing: Prime Minister Zaev sparks social outrage following Bulgaria’s veto to Macedonian EU accession negotiations Gjorgjioska M. Adela

1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11.

+36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin

Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01

Prime Minister Zaev sparks social outrage following Bulgaria’s veto to Macedonian EU accession negotiations

On the 17th of November, Bulgaria vetoed the opening of EU accession negotiations with N. Macedonia. The Bulgarian veto sparked a chain of events, which culminated with an interview given by Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev to a Bulgarian TV station.1 The interview provoked wide-spread social outrage. Numerous institutions, public intellectuals, current and former officials criticized Zaev and the overall approach of the Government, describing it as overly conciliatory, damaging and disrespectful for the position of the country and its history. The backlash went so far as to accuse the Prime Minister of complicity with the Bulgarian government in their negationism of Macedonian language, identity and (anti-fascist) history. Most importantly however, the social outrage revealed the big and widening gap between the ruling political elite and the positions espoused by the people they claim to represent.

The EU negotiation frameworks for N.Macedonia (and Albania) were scheduled to be signed off on November 10 at the EU General Affairs Council and accession negotiations were expected to commence in December 2020. However, in the weeks leading up to these dates, Bulgaria engaged in an aggressive diplomatic offensive, crystalizing its threats to block the Macedonian path towards EU membership. By early October it was reported that Bulgaria had sent a Memorandum to the Council of the EU. The document, supported by all political parties represented in the Bulgarian Parliament, consists of six pages of elaborations and antagonistic claims. As part of it, Bulgarian authorities have argued that N.Macedonia needs to “break with the ideological legacy and practices of communist Yugoslavia”.2 Moreover, it included the highly offensive claims that “the Macedonian nation was an artificial construct created by the

1 https://bgnesagency.com/world/balkans/%d0%b7%d0%b0%d0%b5%d0%b2- %d0%b4%d0%be%d0%b3%d0%be%d0%b2%d0%be%d1%80%d1%8a%d1%82-%d1%89%d0%b5- %d0%b1%d1%8a%d0%b4%d0%b5-%d0%b7%d0%b0%d0%ba%d0%be%d0%bd-%d1%89%d0%b5- %d0%bf%d1%80%d0%b5%d1%81%d0%bb%d0%b5/?fbclid=IwAR0wLbT9wTZoolFf9hwsUKBT3FYMAKuiOw- 4dyVWUSou8HQtDgrstAgw2_c

2https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/2020/09/22/bulgaria-sends-a-memorandum-on-north-macedonian-eu- accession-on-their-state-sponsored-anti-bulgarian-ideology/

Yugoslav Communists” and that “the Macedonian language was an artificial construct based on a Bulgarian dialect”.

Criticisms against the Memorandum have come from many directions, but also from Bulgaria itself. On the 5th of October, a group of Bulgarian historians, scholars and public figures issued an open letter condemning Sofia’s memorandum and insisting on the need for a “fundamental change of the paradigm in historical thinking” in Bulgaria. According to them, Sofia demonstrates outdated views and makes unsustainable and naive claims against Macedonia. Moreover they locate the problem in the “worn out legacy of the romanticized, myth-making historiographic opinion in Bulgaria”.3 Similar criticisms have come from the Bulgarian scholar Tchavdar Marinov, who attempted to illustrate the absurdity of the Bulgarian claims by making some comparable analogies: “Can we imagine Germany demanding that Vienna officially recognize that Mozart was German in order to join the EU?4

Germany, which is currently presiding with the Council of the EU, made some final diplomatic efforts to prevent the veto from materializing. On the 2nd of November, talks between a Macedonian and Bulgarian delegation were hosted in the German Federal Foreign Office in Berlin.5 When these last efforts failed, the hostile rhetoric by Bulgarian officials continued. Several days before the official veto, MFA of Bulgaria Zaharieva stated: ”You cannot want to be a member of the European family, on the one hand, and on the other – to venerate one of the most atrocious dictators of the 20th century – Josip Broz Tito.” The statement was met with opposition and ridicule not only in Macedonia, but also across all of the former Yugoslav countries, where Tito is broadly respected as a figure of historical importance, not least due to the many positive aspects that people still recall from life in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Several days later, comments made by Prime Minister Zaev in an interview for the Bulgarian news agency BGNES, sparked anger and public outrage in the country. Zaev stated that “Bulgaria had not been an occupying force” during the

3https://www.mediapool.bg/evropa-ne-ni-razbira-balgarski-ucheni-poiskaha-novo-istorichesko-mislene-za- severna-makedoniya-news312809.html

4https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/43443/europe-does-not-understand- us?cHash=c4187ece4743addf394d7376286c703b&fbclid=IwAR3i0IkmTtKMAQbZIpk7Ia1Vy3iSgQMmbzZn62t4R SXZd-fWiDBEiUHOsHk

5 https://360stepeni.mk/vo-berlin-popladnevo-na-ista-masa-dimitrov-osmani-i-zaharieva-so-germanski- olesnuvachi/

Second World War. Furthemore, he added that former Yugoslavia is what had kept Macedonians and Bulgarians apart. Finally, he added: “We already replaced 20 plaques on which it was written, ‘Bulgarian Fascist occupier’. This is not true – Bulgaria is not a fascist country; it is our friend,” Zaev said.6

The spurious remarks by the Prime Minister sparked immediate social outrage across the Macedonian social sphere. In the days that followed social media was flooded with personal stories written by grandchildren of former partisans from the Second World War, remembering their fight and the atrocities committed by the Bulgarian fascist occupiers, which had fought on the side of the Axis powers during the Second World War.7 The common thread in such emotional commentaries was the feeling of national betrayal committed by the Prime Minister, due to his evident disregard, disrespect and negation of the national heroes who laid the foundations of Macedonian statehood.

Historians and linguists wrote extensively about the scientific unsoundness of his remarks. Zaev was also condemned by a member of the Macedonian team in the joint Bulgarian-Macedonian history committee, Ljubica Spaskovska.8 “As member of the Macedonian part of the commission, I personally distance myself and condemn the latest remarks of the PM,” she said, adding: “I appeal to politicians to withhold themselves from claims and comments on subjects with which they are not acquainted, and are not in their domain,”9 Spaskovska wrote on Facebook. She was soon joined by her colleague on the same commission, Ognen Vangelov, who also distanced himself from the PM’s statements.

Public criticism also came from the ranks of Zaev’s own party. Former leader of the Social Democrats, former President and PM Branko Crvenkovski, described the interview as

6 https://balkaninsight.com/2020/11/26/north-macedonia-pms-remarks-about-bulgarian-history-hit-a-nerve/

7 https://sitel.com.mk/kalina-korchagin-do-zaev-dali-imeto-na-mojot-dedo-kje-go-zamenish-so-imeto-na- negoviot-ubiec-za-tvoi

8 A joint Bulgaria-N. Macedonia Commission on Educational and Historical issues, set up as part of the Treaty of Friendship and Good Neighbourly Relations signed in 2017, https://mfa.gov.mk/en/document/1712

9 https://www.slobodnaevropa.mk/a/30968935.html

“scandalous”.10 By way of protest he announced that he is freezing his membership in the SDSM and called on other party members to distance themselves from the views of the Prime Minister. Ilinka Mitreva, former Minister of Foreign Affairs from the ranks of the SDSM was also openly critical. She stated: “Zaev's views are the final blow he gives to Macedonia. He started by changing the name of our country in Prespa, and now he is reaching for our identity, our language and our history - by negating notorious historical facts, such as the fascist occupation of Macedonia.”11

A joint Memorandum titled “Macedonian Manifesto” was signed and published by official representatives of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University and the Macedonian Orthodox Church. Among else, the Memorandum expressed the concern about the way in which the process of EU integration is unfolding and urged the State institutions (including the President, the Government and the Parliamentary Assembly) in particular “to respect the knowledge, established facts, adopted theories and empirical research of contemporary world Slavic studies, linguistics, historiography and international law, with regards to the authenticity and autochthony of the Macedonian people, its historical, language, cultural and religious continuity.12

Parties from the opposition consistently called for Zaev’s resignation.13 From the 27th of November, protests started to be organized in spite of the ongoing pandemic. The political party Levica (“the Left”) insisted on an urgent parliamentary discussion of their “Parliamentary Draft Declaration condemning the Bulgarian national-chauvinist pretensions” submitted to Parliament on the 22nd of October. They argued that the Declaration was proposed as an act of unification of all political actors regarding the Macedonian national interests in response to the

10 https://www.dw.com/mk/%D1%86%D1%80%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%81%D0 %BA%D0%B8-%D0%B1%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B0- %D0%BF%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%98%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B0-%D0%B4%D0%B0- %D0%BC%D1%83-%D1%81%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%B8-%D0%BD%D0%B0-%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%B5%D0%B2/a- 55737888

11 https://www.mkd.mk/makedonija/politika/ilinka-mitreva-za-intervjuto-na-zaev-ima-prostor-za-vonreden- kongres-vo-sdsm

12 https://faktor.mk/memorandum-na-manu-mpc-oa-i-ukim-makedonski-manifest-

13 https://www.rferl.org/a/macedonian-protestors-call-for-resignation-of-prime-minister/30978788.html

4 national-chauvinist claims of Bulgaria.14 Furthermore they argued there is an urgent need to underline that the Macedonian name, language, culture, identity, history, national consciousness and origin are an absolute, sovereign and inalienable universal collective right of the Macedonian people which cannot and must not be part of any foreign bilateral meddling agenda.15

Overall, the social outrage sparked by Zaev’ interview revealed a big and widening gap between the policies of the current Government, and the positions espoused by the broad public. Whilst Zaev demonstrated a readiness to appease Bulgarian aggression by accepting the Bulgarian nationalist “version of history”, the big social backlash suggested that the Macedonians do not share his subservient approach; they are not willing to sacrifice their history and national dignity in exchange for the vague promise of EU membership. Zaev’s political authority was further eroded by allegations of personal business links with Bulgarian elites, which raised suspicions that his conciliatory approach is not for the benefit of the country as a whole but for his own private interests. On the other hand, the passive and neutral position of the EU increased the public’s disillusionment with the proclaimed “european values” of the EU itself. Finally, the threat of illegitimate and non-academic distortion of the historical record revealed the strong emotional impact which the memory of the National Liberation War, the Anti-Fascist Assembly of the People's Liberation of Macedonia and Socialist Yugoslavia still commands for the Macedonian public.

14 https://levica.mk/2020/11/05/draft-declaration-condemning-bulgarian-national-chauvinist-pretensions/

15 Ibid