By Francesco Foti
Introduction
To counter the Euroatlantic integration process in the Western Balkans —a multiethnic and multireligious mélange— Moscow, and, albeit less evidently, China have alternatively exploited intercommunal historical grievances, irredentism, subtle infiltration through illegality, the stalemate in the EU integration process and the halted EU enlargement process. The strategies can be linked to the historic Russian Eastern policy during the last centuries of the ailing Ottoman Empire and, in the case of China, the party-state policy enshrined in the Belt and Road Initiative and expressed by the 17+1 initiative by investments, soft power and hybrid tools.
North Macedonia’s path to full EU integration has been lagging for years to the detriment of EU credibility and the benefit of the Russo-Chinese axis. It resulted in the public’s lowest confidence in the EU delivering, and a more positive view on authoritarian states. It has represented a fertile terrain for Russian hybrid warfare, as former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has effectively summarised, and an open door to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, given the soft power tools extolling the benefit of deeper ties and easy financing.
Beyond Prespa
In the case of the North Macedonia-Greece dispute, the Greco-Russian backlash and North Macedonia’s complaints highlighted Moscow’s approach to bilateral rapprochement undermining the historic Russian reservoir for regional power— the politics of chaos and irredentism. China’s state-driven and all-investment approach has hailed Prespa, the beginning for more cooperation and, unlike the French approach, played above petty ultranationalism and Bulgarian supremacy over North Macedonia.
The 2019 Prespa Agreement was the achievement that should have been the dawn of North Macedonia’s place among EU nation-states. It would have helped EU integration to be accepted by the public as a necessary step and culturally internalised as a new chapter to modern nationhood and statehood, given North Macedonia’s policy to Kosovo’s independence and the government’s readiness to discuss the status of the Bulgarian minority.
To counter a Russian-inspired Bulgarian approach, the EU should be ready to present an amended version of the French proposal that, instead of bowing to irredentism, revisionism, and nostalgia, acknowledges that cultural influences in the region come from the past of integration and multiculturalism from Ottomanism, Byzantinism, and antiquity, stifled by the politics of ultranationalism and intolerance. In the face of the Russo-Chinese destabilising strategy to sow anti-EU sentiments, by a renewed EU effort, the constitution of North Macedonia should reflect the future without interference from any irredentism. While minority rights should be included and protected, the amendment to the French proposal should involve the EU as a whole and, importantly, leave out any reference to language much in the same way constitutions in Western Europe do not specify who has more rights to the Latin language and heritage and the Romance languages.
The EU and NATO should persuade Bulgaria to refrain from requiring resolutions that devalue the long-fought recognition of a Slavic Macedonian identity originating from the national quagmire and embodied by the pro-Russia hawk President Rumen Radaev.
Countering Russia and China
Integrated in many international organisations and strategically located, North Macedonia is the object of interest of Russia and China, given the Belt and Road initiative and the country’s corruption, a more pressing problem during national crises. While a cultural revolution is needed, the EU should finalise the country’s accession and sanctions applied to drag the country out of a dangerous vacuum. EU institutionalism and legislation would be the antidote to the lack of positive approach by the Russian counterpart and the Balkan nation-states torn between modern nation building and statebuilding. It would also become less permeable to Chinese infiltration. However, the solution to Russian dependence is a broad one requiring first a way to halt smuggling and seriously invest on renewables. Integration by economic investments and diversification from dependence on Russian natural gas require cooperation among neighbours to find an alternative to compensate, which is what Moscow dreads.
The EU’s integration and investments in infrastructure to counter China should also be top priority in order to make North Macedonia a pivot against Russo-Chinese encirclement. A holistic EU strategy would counter disinformation, the public’s dissatisfaction towards enlargement, and integration. It would oppose the Chinese option for an easy way to get funds, start investments, and get support in crisis time compared to the EU’s complex procedure, therefore appealing to illegality according to Chinese and Russian practices. The West and the EU, specifically, have been less vocal in terms of disinformation, hybrid warfare, and infrastructure and trade policies pursued by China in order to strengthen ties and undermine the Euro-Atlantic alliance.
Sanctions in the face of unnecessary protracted obstructionism will serve as an example for all the pro-Russia and covert pro-China forces stalling integration in the Western Balkans. There is a need for EU and local policymakers to commit to change in discourse for the public and seize the opportunity to weaken Russian style sectarianism that has the capacity to encourage ultranationalism from all sides, and Chinese’s exploitation of illegality. The EU should not fall into the Russian trap of lingering on ultranationalism and let China exploit the impasse of the accession to the EU.
The EU should be profiting from NATO’s push to bring the question of integration of North Macedonia to a close to help stabilise the country and weaken the anti-European and ultra identitarian setbacks before the 2024 elections could crown a pro-Russia and pro-China party that would complicate the EU’s position. Anti-historic ultranationalism should not be allowed to stall integration.
Conclusions
Historically short of consistent and constructive institutionalism and acceptance of modern nation-states in its immediate neighbourhood, the Kremlin has played the card of identity, and in the Russian case, not shied away from questioning the existence of a specific Slavic Macedonian identity which has found echo in the ultranationalists from Albania, Greece, and Bulgaria, and, crucially, has been indirectly internalised by modern-day irredentist North Macedonian parties. The holistic EU strategy requires a re-thinking of the French proposal to North Macedonia’s constitution and a conclusion to the EU integration process along with EU investments to counter China.
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Francesco Dimitrios Foti is a policy and security analyst/researcher. Graduated from the University of Westminster (MA) and Catania (BA), he mainly focuses on EU-Russia relations, the post-Soviet space (South-Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the South Caucasus) paths to Euro-Atlantic integration/cooperation, hybrid warfare, and extremism and terrorism in Europe.
European Studies Review 