Neighborly Relations

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Five months after he was elected to office in early May, North Macedonia’s nationalist, right-wing Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski unveiled his plan to integrate the country into the European Union.

“The government is fully committed to the realization of our strategic goal of full integration into the EU,” said Mickoski, according to local English-language newspaper Sloboden Pecat, or ‘Free Press.’ “In this process, we not only see the future of our country as a full member of the EU, but also as a modern, economically stable and prosperous country that meets the highest European standards.”

The prime minister – and leader of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity political party (VMRO-DPMNE) – might be speaking out of both sides of his mouth, however. His election already has raised eyebrows among skeptical officials in European capitals and Washington.

VMRO-DPMNE lost power in 2017 when voters ousted former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski amid corruption allegations, authoritarian leanings, the unfair suppression of political opponents, and fears that his nationalist government was unenthusiastic about joining the EU, Reuters explained. His successors failed to make much headway in their efforts to achieve accession, however, leading citizens to give Mickoski a chance. But Mickoski appears inclined to ruffle feathers abroad and at home.

American diplomats, for instance, were monitoring events in North Macedonia after Mickoski claimed that leaders of the Democratic Union for Integration, an ethnic Albanian opposition party, were threatening to destabilize the country, Balkan Insight reported. North Macedonian security forces and ethnic Albanians briefly clashed in 2001, raising fears that violence akin to what happened throughout the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s might erupt in this corner of the former communist – and since disintegrated – country again.

Mickoski has also said that he would refuse to refer to his country as the Republic of North Macedonia, added Radio Free Europe, because he believed the “North” appellation was a “shameful adjective.” Many European countries, especially Greece, had refused to recognize North Macedonia as an independent nation unless it differentiated itself from Macedonia, a province in northern Greece. Greek leaders didn’t want their neighbors to the north ever claiming that Greek territory should belong to them.

Even though Mickoski used his country’s official name after taking his oath of office, Greek leaders warned that the prime minister’s comments could complicate North Macedonia’s EU bid, the Associated Press noted. Reopening an issue that had been put to rest in 2019 was not “good neighborly relations,” they said, according to the Anadolu Agency.

That, the AP added, could bring Mickoski’s plans to join the EU to an immediate halt because Greece could, and would, likely veto its bid. Even so, North Macedonian President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova later insisted that she had a “human right” to refer to the country as she liked.