North Macedonia began its formal process of rapprochement with the European Union in 2000, by initiating negotiations about the EU's
Stabilisation and Association Process, and it became the first non-EU country in the Balkans to sign the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA), on 9 April 2001 in
Luxembourg. The agreement was ratified by the Macedonian parliament on 12 April 2001 and came into force on 1 April 2004. On 22 March 2004, the Republic of Macedonia submitted its application for EU membership. On 6 September 2004, the Macedonian government adopted a National Strategy for
European integration, supported by the country's parliament through its Commission for European Issues. The government subsequently began the procedure of answering the questionnaire of the
European Commission regarding its performance in preparation for membership in accordance with the
Copenhagen criteria, a process that was finished by 31 January 2005. The
European Council officially granted the country candidate status on 17 December 2005, after a review and a positive recommendation of the candidacy by the European Commission. After the naming dispute with Greece was solved in 2019, accession negotiations were expected to start within the same year, but in June 2019 the EU General Affairs Council decided to postpone the decision to October, due to objections from a number of countries including the Netherlands and France. France vetoed the decision again in October. On 25 March 2020 the Council of the European Union decided to open accession negotiations, which was endorsed by the European Council the following day. On 17 November 2020 Bulgaria blocked the official start of accession talks with the country. North Macedonia was told to offer further guarantees to Bulgaria that it would honour the 2017 friendship treaty, which deals with historical issues.
Name dispute with Greece A major obstacle for the accession process was the Republic's unresolved
objection by Greece over its name, as Greece argued that it implied territorial ambitions towards Greece's own northern province of
Macedonia. While the country preferred to be called by its constitutional name, Republic of Macedonia, the European Union, in acknowledgment of concerns raised by Greece, maintained a practice of recognising it only as the "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", a compromise of "provisional reference" introduced by the United Nations in 1993. Greece, as any other EU country, has veto power against new accessions, and blocked Macedonian accession due to the naming dispute. On 12 June 2018, an agreement was reached between Greek prime minister
Alexis Tsipras and his Macedonian counterpart
Zoran Zaev, known as the
Prespa agreement, under which the country would be renamed the "Republic of North Macedonia". As part of this deal, Greece explicitly withdrew its previous opposition, allowing the EU to approve on 26 June 2018 a pathway to starting accession talks.
Historical and linguistic dispute with Bulgaria Although Bulgaria was the first country to recognise the independence of the then Republic of Macedonia, most of its academics, as well as the general public, do not recognise the Macedonian language and nation formed after the Second World War as being separate from Bulgarian proper. As part of the efforts to find a solution to the
Macedonia name dispute with
Greece, the Macedonian constitution was changed twice (in 1995, and then again in 2018) to formally exclude any possible territorial aspirations towards neighbouring countries. Some Macedonian politicians consider Bulgarian territory to be part of a greater Macedonia, claiming the majority of the population there are oppressed ethnic Macedonians. Macedonia and Bulgaria signed a friendship treaty to improve their complicated relations in August 2017. A joint commission on historical and educational issues was formed in 2018 to serve as a forum where controversial historical and educational issues could be raised and discussed. This commission has made little progress in its work for a period of one year. In October 2019, Bulgaria set out a "Framework position" warning that it would block the accession process unless North Macedonia fulfilled demands regarding anti-Bulgarian ideology in the country, and ultimately over an 'ongoing nation-building process' based on
historical negationism of the Bulgarian identity, culture and legacy in the broader
region of Macedonia. Bulgarian politicians claim North Macedonia remains the only country in NATO, that is an EU-candidate, whose politics is based on communist historical and linguistic dogmas accepted by
ASNOM. Concerning the
Macedonian language, Bulgaria advises the EU to avoid using the term "Macedonian language" during the accession talks, and instead use the term "Official language of Republic of North Macedonia", reaffirming that it does not recognise the language as separate from
Bulgarian. In September 2020, Bulgaria sent an explanatory memorandum to the
Council of the European Union containing its framework position on the accession of North Macedonia. On 17 November 2020, Bulgaria refused to approve the European Union's negotiation framework for North Macedonia, effectively blocking the official start of accession talks with this country over slow progress on the implementation of the 2017 Friendship Treaty between the two countries, state-supported or tolerated hate speech and minority claims towards Bulgaria. and criticism from international observers. A
survey conducted in November 2020, by Alpha Research of 803 people from all over
Bulgaria, found that 83.8% of Bulgarians were against the accession of North Macedonia in the EU until the historical dispute is solved, only 10.2% of Bulgarians supported the accession with the rest not having an opinion. In June 2022 at the very end of the French
Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January–June), an urgent proposal was put out by the president
Emmanuel Macron to resolve the dispute between the two countries. The proposal provoked a political crisis in Bulgaria. On June 8,
Slavi Trifonov withdrew his party from Bulgaria's governing coalition, citing the issue of North Macedonia. This faced criticism from President
Rumen Radev, who said the proposal was relatively good. However, the government abdicated its responsibility and delegated it entirely to the parliament. As result on 22 June the Bulgarian government faced a
motion of no confidence, which it lost. Nevertheless, on 24 June, after heated discussions, the parliament approved lifting the veto. President Macron claimed that the European leaders had put a lot of pressure on Bulgaria to accept this deal, confirming its approval was a "very good signal". On June 25, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sofia stated that the speed with which North Macedonia would approach the EU membership, already depended on itself. Two days before the end of the French presidency of the EU, the Prime Minister of North Macedonia Kovačevski stated that the government remains of the opinion that the agreement proposed from Paris and approved by Bulgaria is unacceptable for the country. However, since then, the proposal has been backed by the government of North Macedonia. In early July 2022,
protests began in North Macedonia against the French proposal. However, the proposal was accepted by the
Assembly of North Macedonia on 16 July 2022. On 24 June 2022, Bulgaria's parliament approved lifting the country's veto on opening EU accession talks with North Macedonia. On 16 July 2022, the
Assembly of North Macedonia also approved the revised French proposal, allowing accession negotiations to begin. On July 17, North Macedonia signed a special protocol with Bulgaria to cooperate on these subjects. However, there was no progress in the inclusion of the Bulgarian minority in the
Constitution of North Macedonia, though in February 2023, the Bulgarian parliament adopted a declaration condemning, an alleged
anti-Bulgarian campaign there and warned it could stop North Macedonia's EU integration again. Following the formal start of accession negotiations in July 2022, the next step is for North Macedonia to meet the conditions to start substantial negotiations by the opening of the first 5 negotiating chapters (
Fundamentals cluster) at a second intergovernmental conference. This step will not begin until the "opening phase" has been completed, which according to the
Council conclusions of July 2022 is conditional on the
Assembly of North Macedonia approving the agreed
constitutional amendment related to the Bulgarian minority. On 25 September 2024, the EU announced the decoupling of Albania from North Macedonia on the EU accession path, due to the disputes between North Macedonia and Bulgaria around the
Bulgarian minority in North Macedonia, which had delayed further talks. Following the decision on decoupling of their processes, the EU opened negotiations on the first chapters with Albania separately on 15 October 2024. == Domestic politics ==