European integration of North Macedonia: a candidate-witness of the transformation of the European Union

Gjurovski, Marjan and Arnaudov, Mitko (2024) European integration of North Macedonia: a candidate-witness of the transformation of the European Union. In: Proširenje EU, geopolitika i Rusko-ukrajinski rat : zbornik radova sa redovne međunarodne konferencije Udruženja za političke nauke Srbije održane 21-22. oktobra 2023. u Beogradu = EU Enlargement, Geopolitics and the Russian-Ukraine War. Udruženje za političke nauke Srbije : Univerzitet, Fakultet političkih nauka, Beograd, pp. 123-140. ISBN 978-86-6425-126-6

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Abstract

North Macedonia is no longer in the focus of the enlargement of the European Union. After the conflict in 2001, it was a leading country on the European road, ahead of Croatia, which is already a member, in many segments. At the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, it took on the role of “last wagon” in the wider context of European integration in the Western Balkans, no doubt behind Croatia, which was already readily awaiting the accession date, but at the same time behind Montenegro and Serbia. Everything was reduced to the Greek-Macedonian dispute, which actually answered the question that Greece is far from the role of “exclusive brakeman” of the European integration of its northern neighbor. In fact, transformation was a two-way street in the case of the relationship between the European Union and North Macedonia. While Skopje was facing an internal struggle between a civil (bi-national) and a national (uni-national) state, an all-pervading political clash whose epilogue was a completely captured institution, the European Union was faced with internal economic, financial, and then political and institutional challenges that in some way influenced that Brussels is not ready to face the conflict on the territory of Ukraine. This is precisely why we will seek answers to the questions: what are the causes of the “vacuum” in the relations between Skopje and Brussels, what wrong steps can we attribute to Skopje and which to Brussels, has European integration in the Western Balkans become only a theoretical concept, with no practical possibility of realization and how what will the next transformation of the European Union, on the one hand, and North Macedonia, on the other, look like – after all the current challenges?

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