This Friday, the President of North Macedonia Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova will visit Sofia to watch the performance "Nabucco" by the Macedonian Opera and Ballet, together with Bulgarian President Rumen Radev.
The visit is presented by Davkova herself as a form of cultural diplomacy, after she attended the performance of "Valkyrie" by the Bulgarian Opera in Skopje in May. Davkova will be accompanied by Culture Minister Zoran Lyutkov and Foreign Minister Timcho Mutsunski. The delegation arrives in Sofia at a time when international pressure on North Macedonia is mounting due to a lack of reform, pandemic corruption and growing malign influence from Serbia and Russia.
On the one hand, Davkova's decision to visit Sofia at the beginning of her term is commendable. On the other hand, it is not clear whether Davkova's visit is an expression of cultural diplomacy, as she claims, or another attempt by the government in Skopje to release a smokescreen in front of international partners that it wants improved relations with Sofia and EU membership. The facts suggest that the second scenario is more likely, as the visit is not official but private. There is no evidence that President Davkova was invited by Rumen Radev for an official visit. Rather, she has invited herself to Bulgaria under the pretext of watching an opera so that she can mimic a desire to develop relations with Bulgaria. To the EU, the visit will be presented as an expression of good neighborliness and a desire for dialogue, and to the media in North Macedonia, Davkova will be presented as a defender of national honor and dignity from the "Bulgarian dictate".
Davkova's visit is also a clever attempt to divert the attention of the international community from the brutal political purge underway at all levels of the administration in North Macedonia. The visit to Sofia will give Davkova the opportunity to present herself as an internationalist and peacemaker instead of giving explanations for the lack of any reforms in the rule of law, education and the fight against the pandemic corruption in the country.
Such diversionary tactics are well known in Skopje and were demonstrated in the most cynical way in 2023 by the previous foreign minister, Bujar Osmani. He visited the hospital where Bulgarian activist Hristian Pendikov was being treated after being beaten for being Bulgarian in Ohrid. Osmani's visit to Sofia was presented to international partners as an expression of empathy and good neighborliness, but in no way led to a reduction in hate speech against Bulgarians in North Macedonia. Moreover, the interior minister at the time, Oliver Spasovski, said that Pendikov was talking "complete nonsense" in his accounts of the situation of the Macedonian Bulgarians in North Macedonia.
According to Western diplomats, North Macedonia was falling into deeper international isolation. This is happening thanks to the actions of both President Davkova and the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE government led by Hristijan Mickoski. The country has sharply deteriorated its relations with Bulgaria and Greece, at the expense of an increasingly visible rapprochement with Serbia and Russia. After 33 years of independence, the country for the first time elected a Serb, Ivan Stoilkovic, as deputy prime minister, who has demonstrated close ties to Vucic and praises Putin. Stoilkovic called the 1995 Srebrenica massacre a "necrophilic Disneyland."
During the swearing-in ceremony, President Davkova referred to her country as "Macedonia" rather than by its constitutional name, North Macedonia. This infuriated Greece, and in response, Davkova argued that it was her human right to call her country whatever she wished. In order to justify her blunder, Davkova decided to propose cultural diplomacy between North Macedonia and Greece, similar to the proposal to Bulgaria. Against the backdrop of the country's president's public disregard for an international treaty, Davkova's idea is apparently not viewed positively by Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis for the moment.
The Hristijan Mickoski-led government supports Davkova in her provocations and is actively working to completely halt the negotiation process for North Macedonia's EU membership. To this end, Mickoski presents the negotiating framework approved by the 27 EU countries as a "Bulgarian dictate" and the good neighbor agreement with Bulgaria as a "humiliation of Macedonian honor and dignity". Mickoski categorically refuses to implement the negotiating framework in the part on the inclusion of Bulgarians in the Constitution along with the other peoples in the country. In his extreme statements, he even went as far as denying the existence of Bulgarians in North Macedonia, strongly reducing their number to "a few hundred people". The European Corridor 8, linking Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Albania, supported by the EU, has also become the object of the anti-Bulgarian campaign of the government in Skopje. The corridor, which is also part of NATO's military mobility plans, has been publicly denounced as corrupt by both Mickoski and the deputy prime minister, Alexander Nikolovski.
In order to cover up the complete stalemate of the negotiations with the EU, Mickoski and his foreign minister Timcho Mutsunski are propagating the idea that Bulgaria and the EU are to blame for the stalling of the integration process in the Western Balkans, as well as for the growing influence of Serbia and Russia in the region. According to Mickoski, in order to restart the integration process, Bulgaria should agree that the inclusion of Bulgarians in the constitution should be done on a deferred basis after the country's accession to the EU. To reinforce the effect, Foreign Minister Mutsunski claims that "great powers in Europe" support this proposal, without naming names. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which Mickoski claims has issued "14 convictions" against Bulgaria for problems with the country's Macedonian minority, is also being implicated in the propaganda campaign. This claim was publicly refuted and declared fake news. The Strasbourg court issues judgments, not sentences, and a reference to the Council of Europe shows that Bulgaria is under surveillance for the implementation of six judgments. None of these decisions speaks of recognition of a Macedonian minority in Bulgaria, but of a violation of the right of association of Bulgarian citizens. North Macedonia is not a party to these cases, and the claims of a minority by Mickoski directly violate Article 11(5) of the Neighborhood Treaty and undermine the credibility of the Council of Europe.
Mickoski's goal is clear, Skopje's absurd proposals should be rejected and Bulgaria's call for the implementation of international commitments already made should be presented as "new conditions" for North Macedonia's EU membership. Skopje's tactic is to find a suitable way to stick the stigma of the veto on Bulgaria and to come out of international isolation. To this end, the media in North Macedonia constantly circulate the lies that Bulgaria does not recognize the Macedonian identity and language, even though Bulgaria was the first to recognize the Republic of Macedonia in 1992 and there is a signed treaty in 2017 with clear wording regarding the language. Mickoski also persistently does not comment on the facts that Bulgaria saved Macedonia from bankruptcy during the Greek embargo in 1994 and gave huge aid to Kosovo refugees in the country during the Kosovo war in 1999.
Given this context, President Davkova's visit to Sofia to watch an opera seems like yet another attempt to release a smokescreen in front of Bulgaria and the international community to cover up the anti-European policies of the government in the country. | BGNES
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Georgi Pashkulev, editor-in-chief, BGNES.
