Croatian “Jutarnji List” published an analysis of the political situation in and around Macedonia, and the threat of a Bulgarian veto. Macedonia hopes to finally open EU accession talks by the end of the year, but Bulgaria has a list of historic and national identity concessions it wants delivered before it approves the talks.

After more than two decades of struggles with Greece it seemed that Macedonia’s EU blockade is finished but now it faces veto from a different country – Bulgaria. Bulgaria threatens to block their accession talks if they insist they speak a language of their own – different from the Bulgarian, and that they have a unique ethnic, cultural, historic and linguistic identity. If they continue to claim they are what they are – no EU for them, writes Vlado Vurusic in his analysis published by “Jutarnji List”.

The paper reminds the public that Macedonia was made an EU candidate country together with Croatia, in 2005. Now Croatia is an EU member, after also going through protracted accession talks and facing a veto threat from a neighbor (Slovenia) but nowhere near what Macedonia faces. Both countries were also supposed to join NATO together in 2008, only for Macedonia to be vetoed by Greece – a veto that was only lifted in 2019 after the Zaev regime imposed a name change.

Will Macedonia finally emerge from this endless cycle and realize its dreams of Europe, or will it remain mired in the mud of frustrated, small town Balkan imperialists it has as neighbors, the paper asks, noting that EU member states in the region are using their leverage to impose conditions on the Balkan countries that are still applying.