Advocates of immediate constitutional change in North Macedonia argue that recognizing Bulgarians as a constitutive community, with the amendment entering into force upon adoption, is the final obstacle to EU accession. Any further delay, they warn, will leave the country trailing behind Montenegro and Albania. From this perspective, inserting Bulgarians into the Constitution would satisfy Sofia’s demand and unblock negotiations.
This argument rests on a critical assumption: that after constitutional change, no further vetoes will follow. Yet the accession framework as it currently stands offers no grounds for such optimism. The problem facing North Macedonia is not a single unresolved condition, but a structural form of bilateral conditionality embedded into the EU accession process itself. Constitutional change may open negotiations, but it does not close the door to future vetoes. Under existing arrangements, it risks deepening long-term exposure to identity-based pressure.
Why the Conditions Do Not End with Constitutional Change
Bulgaria’s demands are not ad hoc or contingent on a single government. They are anchored in binding state-level positions adopted by the Bulgarian government and parliament in 2019 and reaffirmed since. These documents assert that Macedonian history before 1944 is “Bulgarian history” and that the Macedonian language is a regional variant of Bulgarian. Within this framework, Macedonian nationhood is portrayed as an artificial post-WWII construction rooted in an “anti-Bulgarian” ideology.
Bulgaria interprets the 2017 Treaty of Friendship and Good Neighborliness as obliging North Macedonia to internalize this narrative through the work of the Joint Historical Commission and to reflect it in education and public discourse. Sofia has consistently presented these issues as unresolved and ongoing.
The EU accession framework adopted in 2022 did not insulate the process from these bilateral demands. Instead, through the so-called French proposal, it procedurally embedded them. Paragraph 5 of the Negotiating Framework places the implementation of Article 12 of the 2017 Treaty — its “measures and reviews”, i.e. the protocols — within the same operational list that structures accession progress. Paragraph 47 then requires the European Commission to report on these commitments at every Intergovernmental Conference.
The result is structural. Because every stage of accession requires unanimity, Bulgaria’s interpretation of compliance gains recurring procedural visibility. Even though the EU does not endorse Sofia’s historical or linguistic claims, they will reappear systematically in Commission reporting and decision-making cycles. What was once an ad hoc veto has become a recurrent veto opportunity, embedded in the process itself.
The Second Protocol to the 2017 Treaty illustrates this logic. Although formally an implementing instrument, it “encourages” the Historical Commission to complete its entire mandate before EU membership without an independent arbiter. The Commission’s work has stalled for years, so this alone can be cited as “insufficient progress” at any point, regardless of advances in the acquis. Thus, conditionality does not end with constitutional change; it accompanies the process indefinitely.
Crucially, because Paragraph 5 of the EU Negotiating Framework incorporates the implementation of Article 12 “measures” under the 2017 Treaty into the accession process, those measures acquire accession-relevant significance. In practice, they are the protocols themselves, as no other documents have ever been produced under Article 12.
Precisely because the protocols now function within the accession framework, their scope must be legally delimited and clarified, particularly where provisions concern history or identity and therefore fall outside the acquis. As implementing acts, they are subject to clarification or revision through the Intergovernmental Commission, ensuring that such provisions cannot operate as open-ended benchmarks in the accession process.
The Irreversibility Trap
Supporters of immediate constitutional amendments sometimes argue that if Bulgaria were to veto again, North Macedonia could withdraw from negotiations and reverse the changes. This ignores political reality. Constitutional amendments of this type require both a two-thirds parliamentary majority and a majority of ethnic minority MPs, that is, a dual majority. Reversing them would be even more implausible. Once adopted, the amendment would be politically permanent long before EU membership is attainable.
This asymmetry is central. North Macedonia would undertake an effectively irreversible constitutional change in exchange for a procedurally reversible promise of progress. Bulgaria, by contrast, would retain the ability to withhold consent at any stage, at minimal political cost.
Constitutional enumeration, in fact, creates new channels of leverage. While Sofia cannot legislate in North Macedonia, the accession framework allows it to condition continued progress on how Macedonian institutions interpret and apply constitutional categories. Pressure can thus be exerted indirectly, through the threat of procedural blockage rather than formal legal authority.
Identity, Census Data, and Future Leverage
This risk is not theoretical. Bulgaria has already pointed to a “discrepancy” between the roughly 3,500 citizens who declared Bulgarian ethnicity in North Macedonia’s 2021 census and the more than 100,000 individuals who have obtained Bulgarian citizenship by declaring “Bulgarian origin.”
The explanation lies in Bulgaria’s diaspora citizenship regime, which rests on the doctrine that Macedonians are of Bulgarian origin. Access to an EU passport created powerful instrumental incentives, leading many Macedonians to use this pathway without identifying as Bulgarian in census terms. In fact, only around 1,500 census respondents identified Bulgarian as their mother tongue.
Once Bulgarians are constitutionally enumerated, Sofia could insist that these 100,000 individuals fall within the same constitutional category, vastly expanding its scope beyond census self-identification. Refusing such a reinterpretation could then be framed as discrimination or evidence of an “anti-Bulgarian climate,” a narrative already present in Bulgaria’s official positions and one that could again be used to justify vetoes.
Similar dynamics have appeared elsewhere. In Albania, where a Bulgarian minority was recognized only in 2017, the 2023 census recorded over 7,000 Bulgarians amid accusations of passport-linked pressure. These cases show how identity recognition, when tied to external leverage, can reshape demographic categories in ways disconnected from genuine self-identification.
Accepting such reinterpretations would undermine the integrity of census data and minority policy. Rejecting them would risk renewed obstruction. Either way, Bulgaria would retain structurally embedded leverage throughout the accession process.
Why Speed Alone Is an Illusion
Claims that constitutional change will place North Macedonia on a fast track comparable to Albania’s current pace are misleading. Even if negotiations were opened and clusters advanced, nothing obliges Bulgaria to ratify an accession treaty at the end of the process unless its broader expectations are met.
At the final stage, the veto becomes most potent. By then, the process will be deeply embedded politically and diplomatically, increasing pressure on the candidate to concede further demands. North Macedonia could remain stuck in a ratification limbo for years, precisely when the costs of withdrawal are highest.
This risk is amplified by the EU’s own uncertainty about enlargement and institutional reform. Entering this environment with unresolved and open-ended bilateral exposure would weaken, not strengthen, North Macedonia’s strategic position.
A Safeguard, Not a Rejection
If the problem is structural, the response must be structural as well. The objective should not be to block constitutional change, but to restore proportionality between irreversible domestic concessions and an accession process that remains fair, predictable, and acquis-based.
One option is a constitutional safeguard that allows the amendment to enter into force immediately, satisfying the EU’s formal requirement, while linking its operative effect to the good-faith continuation of accession on acquis terms. Constitutional changes adopted solely to meet EU benchmarks should remain fully operative while the process advances, but should not generate irreversible consequences if the process is blocked for reasons unrelated to the acquis.
In practice, this would mean that if the European Commission confirms that benchmarks are met, yet the Council withholds advancement without citing specific acquis deficiencies, the amendment’s effect would be suspended for the duration of that blockage. Once the process resumes on acquis terms, full effect would automatically be restored. Upon EU accession, the conditional element would expire entirely.
This is not defiance. It is a rule-of-law safeguard rooted in proportionality and verification—principles the EU itself applies through reversibility mechanisms in enlargement. Importantly, such a safeguard would not affect individual or collective rights, which are already guaranteed through substantive constitutional provisions and do not depend on preambular enumeration.
This equality of rights is evident in practice. Bulgarian cultural and civic organizations in North Macedonia have operated legally despite the absence of specific constitutional listing, confirming that collective activities and associational rights do not depend on preambular recognition. This stands in sharp contrast to Bulgaria, where Macedonian organizations remain prohibited despite the country’s EU membership and multiple European Court of Human Rights judgments in their favor, none of which Bulgaria has implemented.
Conclusion
The Macedonian–Bulgarian case reveals a broader lesson about enlargement. Institutions do not automatically neutralize power asymmetries; they often reorganize them. In a unanimity-based system, even politically weaker member states can wield disproportionate leverage over candidates at low cost and over long-time horizons.
Constitutional self-protection under these conditions is not obstructionism. It is a rational response to structural vulnerability. Safeguards of this kind do not undermine EU accession; they seek to restore its original logic—progress based on objective, acquis-aligned criteria rather than open-ended bilateral reinterpretation. For North Macedonia, exiting the Bulgarian labyrinth requires not speed alone, but clarity and proportionality.
An extended version of this analysis is available in SAIS Review of International Affairs (Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies).
