Bulgaria’s Secret Empire: An Ultimatum to North Macedonia

Abstract

In the summer of 2019, 30 years after the end of communism in Europe, Bulgaria began to forward the way of Skopje numerous onerous conditions as a salient precondition for opening any European Union (EU) accession negotiation talks with North Macedonia. All of these conditions are dictated by ethnolinguistic nationalism that underlies the Bulgarian national master narrative. On 9 October 2019, the Bulgarian government officially adopted these conditions in the form of an ultimatum, bar the term. Sofia did not have to deploy this ultimatum, since earlier Paris blocked the pending accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia. It appears that in the face of economic and political problems at home, Bulgarian politicians tend to use nationalism to divert citizens’ attention. The Bulgarian government seems to emulate the Kremlin’s policy of ‘Russian World,’ which on the basis of ethnolinguistic nationalism claims for Russia all the territories inhabited by Russian-speakers. A similar policy of ‘Bulgarian World’ (Bılgarski sviat) is pursued by Sofia from Moldova to North Macedonia and Albania, clamoring for recognizing all the Slavic-speakers in this area as members of the Bulgarian nation. These neo-imperial ambitions, unless checked and moderated, are bound to destabilize the Balkans and the EU.

Keywords

• Bulgaria
• North Macedonia
• ethnolinguistic nationalism
• ultimatum
• European Union
• hybrid neoimperialism

References

1. Cf Gotev, G. (2018) 'Tsipras and Zaev reportedly in the running for Nobel Peace Prize', Euractive.com, 3 Oct, https://www.euractiv.com/section/enlargement/news/tsipras-and-zaev-reportedly-in-the-running-for-nobel-peace-prize/ (viewed 11 September 2019);
2. 'North Macedonia Deal: Greek PM Tsipras in 'Historic' Visit', 2019, BBC News, 2 Apr, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47785258 (viewed 11 September 2019).