Orbán accuses EU of denting North Macedonia’s ‘national pride’

Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán has accused European Union officials of denting North Macedonia’s “national pride” by further delaying the country’s bid to join the bloc.

During a visit to the country, Orbán also offered to mediate with EU member Bulgaria, whose dispute with Skopje over Balkan history and heritage triggered the new delay.

“We are here to offer the best solutions,” he said, during a news conference with North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski.

Those comments come after reports that EU ambassadors meeting in Brussels on Wednesday decided to push ahead with Albania’s EU accession process, independently of North Macedonia’s.

Both countries began membership talks with Brussels in 2022 as the war in Ukraine forced a rethink of the bloc’s enlargement process and up to now the two bids had been moving together.  

Orbán said it would be “a big mistake” to separate the two.

North Macedonia’s bid was delayed by a dispute with Bulgaria over Balkan history, language and culture.

To break the impasse, the previous centre-left government in Skopje accepted a Bulgarian demand to insert a reference to a Bulgarian ethnic minority in North Macedonia’s constitution.

However, it lacked the parliamentary majority to effect the change, and Hristijan Mickoski’s new conservative government says it will only amend the constitution if Bulgaria first approves North Macedonia’s EU membership.

Previously, the country’s EU path was blocked for years by neighbouring Greece over another dispute over history and heritage.

That was settled with the 2018 Prespa Agreement which saw North Macedonia change its name from “the Republic of Macedonia”.

Speaking at the UN General Assembly on Thursday, North Macedonia’s President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova complained that her country’s slow progress towards EU membership was like “waiting for Godot”.