Sofia and Skopje: Neighbours’ soap opera

Wed, Feb 08 2012

Fri, Mar 19 2010 10:00 CET

byClive Leviev-Sawyer

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Sofia and Skopje: Neighbours’ soap opera

CAUSE CELEBRE: Spaska Mitrova, at the centre of a dispute between Bulgaria and Macedonia that has seen some voices in Sofia, including Prime Minister Boiko Borissov, hint that Bulgarian support for Macedonia’s EU hopes could be withdrawn.

Photo: Assen Tonev

It is in the nature of sibling relationships for occasional strife to spawn emotional, if not hysterical language, customarily laced with threats; so too Bulgaria and Macedonia.
Even by the heady standards of the Balkans, Macedonia’s bilateral relations seem defined by matters of deeply-felt emotions. Its dispute with Greece about the use of the name Macedonia is the prime example.

It is trite yet true to point out that Bulgaria was the first country to recognise Macedonia under that name, with the "former Yugoslav republic of" prefix, but this first flowering has proved anything but hardy in the long term.

Many issues have divided the two, not least contests about history and ownership of historical figures, and on top of that, bitter divisions about questions of language and mutual claims made, and rejected, about respective ethnic minorities.

More recently, the Spaska Mitrova case which, in sum, involves a woman who was born in Macedonia but got a Bulgarian passport, was involved in a custody matter which saw her jailed for refusing to allow the father access to the child, then was released in what was seen as a gain for Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov, but more recently, a
Macedonian court deprived her of custody – and barred Bulgarian officials from its in-camera proceedings.

The most recent episode led to Deputy Foreign Minister Marin Raikov summoning Skopje’s ambassador, Aleksandar Vasilevski, to protest the court proceedings.

Raikov told journalists after his meeting with Vasilevski that he had heard no convincing explanations for which the court had handled the matter as it had. Borissov hinted that unless Skopje "fixed" its judiciary, it could not rely on Bulgaria’s support for its hopes to join the European Union.

At the initiatives of Bulgarian socialists in the European Parliament, the country’s MEPs from all political groups were to request a meeting with European Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele to present to him cases of alleged infringements of people of Bulgarian identity in Macedonia, news agency Focus said, quoting a media statement by the socialists.

Against the background of the ambivalent relationship between Sofia and Skopje, and even the newest episode in the Mitrova saga unfolded, a process was in train at the initiative of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry to set relations on a new footing.

Proposed as the basis for discussion, the draft treaty sent by Bulgaria to Macedonia is intended to set the scene for good neighbourliness, and in its current form, would bind the two countries to renounce territorial claims, forego hate speech (Bulgaria repeatedly has complained to Macedonia about the language used in some media reports) and, on the positive side, moots joint celebrations of some historical events, preservation of common cultural heritage and co-operation in a number of spheres, significantly in the economy, energy and infrastructure.

It appears to be a magnanimous gesture by Bulgaria, which – let it be said – has scant need for economic or political support from Macedonia, a country with a battered economy and where the main advantage of eventual EU membership would be to tie it into a system of agreed rules as part of a wider project to seek to ensure the long-term stability of the Western Balkans.

Those Western Balkans are, after all, precisely the place where Bulgaria has offered itself to the EU as the policy point person for the bloc. Repairing bilateral relations with Macedonia has to be an important step in this wider process, and it can be no surprise that, between emotionally-charged moments in Skopje and occasional harsh statements in
Sofia, the notion of renovating relations has been expressed both by the presidents of the two countries and by Government leaders in Bulgaria.

This is not the first time such an initiative has been tried, and there is no guarantee that it will succeed this time around, much as Bulgaria – now with Nikolai Mladenov bringing new momentum as Foreign Minister – may genuinely desire progress.

Several days after the draft document was sent to Macedonia, official silence reigned from Skopje, or at least, there was little beyond a statement by the foreign ministry in the Macedonia capital that it would study the document very carefully. The document makes no linkage between repaired relations in the areas outlined in the clauses and Bulgarian support for Macedonia’s EU bid; the Foreign Ministry rejects the notion of any such linkage existing.

However, and perhaps as an illustration of the very problems that the document seeks to solve, media in Skopje immediately linked the draft to Bulgarian policy on Macedonia’s EU aspirations.

"Such fears, however, are quite unreasonable as so far Bulgaria has supported Macedonia’s efforts for EU and Nato integration despite the problems between the two countries," Bulgarian National Radio said on March 13, adding that Mladenov was expected to visit Skopje soon, "which might shed more light on the issue".

Light, however, can be an elusive thing. In Skopje, television station A1 said that Macedonia wanted the two countries to sign the European Convention on Minority Rights, opening the way for Bulgaria to recognise the Macedonian minority. This, according to A1, as reported by news agency Focus, was not the only issue; there were misgivings about the identifications to be assigned to some revolutionaries and writers, too.

And, in a comment on March 15 that also underlined the degree of suspicion, Macedonian foreign minister Antonio Milososki was quoted by a local newspaper as saying that behind every well-intentioned move towards good neighbourly relations, there was self-interest. The draft document, Milososki said, put "rosy nuances" on bilateral relations between Bulgaria and Macedonia.