Weekly Briefing, Vol. 53. No. 1 (MK) July 2022
Authoritarian liberalism or how the French proposal was pushed through the Macedonian Parliament in spite of overwhelming opposition
Summary
At the end of its EU Council Presidency, France sent to the Macedonian and Bulgarian authorities a draft proposal aimed at removing the Bulgarian veto on Macedonia’s EU accession talks. The French proposal envisions Bulgaria’s conditions becoming a part of the Macedonian negotiation framework with the EU. On the 24th of June Bulgarian lawmakers accepted the draft proposal. In the weeks that followed the attention turned to the Macedonian parliament and the 120 MPs who were tasked with the decision to either accept or reject the proposal. Although the content of the French proposal and the Bulgarian protocol that forms an integral part of the full document were kept hidden from the public, translations of the Bulgarian version appeared in the media. Numerous experts and political figures described it as a “disgrace for the Macedonian diplomacy”. Meanwhile, over 50,000 people gathered daily between 1st-16th July in Skopje protesting against the proposal. A survey found that 72,8% of ethnic Macedonians, and 56% of the total population oppose it. In spite of the overwhelming opposition, the French proposal was forcibly pushed through Parliament on the 16th of July.
On the 24th of July the Bulgarian Parliament accepted the so-called French proposal for lifting its veto on N. Macedonia’s EU accession talks. The proposal envisions Bulgaria’s conditions becoming a part of the Macedonian negotiation framework.[1] Although initially the Macedonian Prime Minister rejected the proposal, only several days later he said the French proposal was a “solid base for building a responsible and statesmanlike stance on the possibility that opens up to our country.”[2] This meant that the Government had accepted the Proposal and was now going to proceed with securing its Parliamentary approval. Throughout this period the content of the French proposal, and the Bulgarian protocol that forms an integral part of the document, were kept hidden from the public. In a press event, Minister of Foreign Affairs Bujar Osman, said that there is no intention to publish the content to the Macedonian public.[3] In the absence of an official document Macedonian media translated the Protocol from Bulgarian media.[4] It was on the basis of this translation that numerous experts, former officials and academics described the proposal as “a disgrace for the Macedonian diplomacy”.[5] Meanwhile, between the 2nd and 16th of July tens of thousands of people gathered daily in Skopje in protests against the proposal insisting it is humiliating and dangerous to national interests.[6] According to them it “Bulgarianizes” the country and does not recognize the Macedonian language and history. Their views were reflected in a survey conducted by the Institute of Political Investigations from Skopje (IPIS) between 4th-6th of July.[7] 72.8% of the ethnic Macedonians included in the survey answered “no” to the question: “Would you accept the opening of negotiations with the EU at the price of Macedonia agreeing to the so-called French proposal”?. Out of the total sample 56% of respondents also said “no”, which suggested that the majority of respondents, regardless of ethnicity, were also against it.[8] The opposition to the proposal stems from its integration of Bulgarian expansionist, negationist and assimilations claims against the Macedonian people, its language, history and identity. Among else, the French proposal makes Macedonia’s progress to the EU conditional on the country’s acceptance of Bulgarian historical revisionism, on the revision of its Constitution to make Bulgarians one of the constituent ethnic groups, and a very broadly construed understanding of “hate speech” to include everyone who dares to express the truth about the history, or present-day form of Bulgarian ethno-nationalism towards Macedonia.[9] What is more, in continuation with EU’s bid to draw an equivalence between communism and fascism as part of the drive towards war with Russia (and China), the Proposal also includes a section titled “Rehabilitation of the victims of the communist period 1945-1990”, in which it refers to the Yugoslav period as “totalitarianism” and calls for the condemnation of Yugoslav history and officials.[10] It is indicative that the proposal doesn’t include a similar call for condemnation of Bulgarian Nazis who (among else) were responsible for the extermination of the Macedonian Sephardic Jews during the Second World War. This implies that even fascism and nazism are rehabilitated in the attempt to denigrate socialism and communism.[11]
Not only did the EU fail to condemn such processes, it openly endorsed them in the run up to the Parliamentary vote. Charles Michel, president of the European Council, visited Skopje on July 5 and offered his support for the French proposal. President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Layen on the 14th of July, gave a speech in the Macedonian Parliament, trying to convince the MPs to accept the Proposal. She was met with fierce opposition by the MPs from the opposition (Levica and VMRO-DPMNE). The leader of Levica, Dimitar Apasiev, interrupted her speech by blowing a whistle and left a banner on the parliamentary rostrum with the title: “Macedonia Says NO”.[12] While the session was ongoing, many citizens gathered outside of Parliament to send a clear message to both the EU and their own MPs that the Macedonian people reject the offer. In spite of the overwhelming opposition to the French proposal, it was nonetheless passed on the 16th of July. The two MPs from Levica and the 46 MPs from VMRO-DPMNE refused to vote, in an attempt to delegitimize the process itself. 68 out of the 120 MPs voted in favor. In fact, it was the votes of MPs from SDSM and the political parties from the ethnic-Albanian bloc, which allowed for the proposal to be pushed through Parliament. The ethnic distribution of the votes paints an instructive picture of the socio-political structure of the Macedonian political system. Out of 120 MPs in the Parliament: 80 are Macedonians, 32 Albanians, 2 Turks, 2 are Serbs, 2 are Bosniaks, 1 is Roma, 1 is Vlav. Out of the 80 Macedonian MPs only 32 voted for the proposal, 48 did not vote. Out of 32 Albanian MPs: 30 voted FOR, 02 did not vote. The rest of the votes in favor came from 1 Turk MP, 1 Serbian MP, 2 Bosnian MPs, 1 Roma MP and 1 Vlach MP. This implies that the majority, 48 out of 80 of Macedonian MPs, did not support the decision. According to Ilija Dimovski, former MP from VMRO-DPMNE this implies that the constitutional equality of the citizens in the country has been threatened since Macedonians in Macedonia do not have the right to decide for themselves and to protect their cultural, linguistic, educational, historical and identity characteristics, a right claimed by minorities in the country.[13] Redzep Ismail, Member of the Presidium of the party Levica agreed with this assessment describing it as “tyranny of the minority”. He further explained how the Badenter institution – a product of the Ohrid Framework Agreement – aimed at protecting minority groups from the will of the majority, in Macedonian conditions, has become a tool for the tyranny of the minority over the majority. “Beware of the nebulous situation that arises when certain political issues – which not only have nothing to do with minority rights (the rights of the Albanians) but on the contrary, they are directly to the detriment of the Macedonian people – the Albanian parties in Macedonia declare these issues as the supreme interest of the Albanian a minority?! So everything that is against such policies is declared Albanian-phobic, nationalist and xenophobic. This was the case with the Prespa Agreement. Now once again, the anti-Macedonian interests of Bulgaria will be legitimized with the help of the Albanians in Macedonia. The Macedonians rightly feel betrayed – as if a knife had been stuck in their back.[14]
In spite of the overwhelming opposition, the French proposal was forcibly pushed through Parliament on the 16th of July. This was made possible by the various structures and mechanisms that had been entrenched in the Macedonian political system since 2001, when the Ohrid Framework Agreement was put in place. Since then ethnic identity politics have become the main organizing principle of Macedonian socio-political relations and geostrategic orientations. These structures allowed the French proposal to be passed in Parliament although 48 out of 80 of Macedonian MPs, did not support the decision. The fact that a decision that directly affects the Macedonian cultural, linguistic, educational, historical and identity characteristics was pushed through in the face of mass protests and overwhelming opposition, and in the absence of formal support from the Macedonian people, exemplified the “tyranny of the minority”. It also exemplified some of the features and consequences of authoritarian liberalism. In turn this served as a fresh illustration of the complete absence of substantive representative democracy in a country run by a Government that draws its legitimacy not from its people, but from the endorsement it receives from the EU and NATO structures, in exchange for its alignment with their current geopolitical interests and goals.
[1] Bulgarian lawmakers accept French proposal for lifting veto, published on 24.06.2022, available at
https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/2022/06/24/bulgarian-lawmakers-accept-french-proposal-for-lifting-veto/ accessed on 23.07.2022
[2] Protesters Rally In Skopje For Third Night Against Compromise With Bulgaria, published on 04.07.2022, available at
https://www.rferl.org/a/macedonia-bulgaria-eu-france/31928792.html accessed on 23.07.2022
[3] What does the Protocol of the Macedonian-Bulgarian Intergovernmental Commission contain?, published on 01.7.2022, available at
[4] Ibid
[5] Open letter to the Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani by the Macedonian Diplomatic Trade Union, published on 07.07.2022, available at https://a1on.mk/macedonia/otvoreno-pismo-na-makedonski-diplomatski-sindikat-do-bujar-osmani/ accessed on 14.07.2022
[6] Protesters Rally In Skopje For Third Night Against Compromise With Bulgaria, published on 04.07.2022, available at
https://www.rferl.org/a/macedonia-bulgaria-eu-france/31928792.html accessed on 23.07.2022
[7] 72.8 percent of Macedonians are against the French proposal, says an IPIS survey, published on 07.07.2022, available at
https://www.mkd.mk/makedonija/politika/728-otsto-od-makedoncite-se-protiv-francuskiot-predlog-veli-anketa-na-ipis accessed on 23.07.2022
[8] The survey was conducted from the 4th to the 6th of this month, based on telephone calls, and 1,114 adult citizens were contacted.
[9] The full content of the French proposal was
[10] The battle for Europe’s past and future, available at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/battle-europes-past-and-future?fbclid=IwAR0q8A4A3q3PfMUPwwzCysk8x3IdIzDIKnAE_pvKWRRS2KWh6-tC131HigQ accessed on 23.07.2022
[11] Never Forget What the Fascists Did, published on 10.09.2019, available at
https://jacobin.com/2019/10/bulgaria-fascism-nazism-anticommunism-historical-memory accessed on 23.07.2022
[12] MP Apasiev interrupted Ursula’s speech, published on 14.07.2022, available at
[13] Ilija Dimovski: The constitutional equality of citizens is at risk!, published on 17.07.2022, available at
[14]Ismail: Badinter contradiction – tyranny of the minority, published on 13.07.2022, available at
https://antropol.mk/2022/07/13/ismail-badenter-kontradikcija/ accessed on 23.07.2022