Despite assurances from the SDSM party that the Prespa treaty they signed with Greece safeguards Macedonian national identity, examples of its intrusion come daily.

One such example was shared online yesterday, and comes from the job vacancies portion of the NATO web site. It asks applicants to choose their nationality and while other NATO member states are listed by their actual nationalities, Macedonian applicants are listed as “citizen of the Republic of North Macedonia”.

You said the treaty will protect our national identity! This is what we are listed as, said professor Tanja Karakamiseva, who was one of the many who shared the print screen yesterday.

Under the Prespa treaty, the Macedonian nationality is listed as “Macedonian/citizen of the Republic of North Macedonia”. While promoting the treaty and its alleged benefits, SDSM officials insisted that it will allow Macedonians to use the nationality “Macedonian” as a stand-alone word, and that Greece ostensibly agreed to it. In reality, more and more cases surface where the term “Northmacedonian” is used, as well as such cases where the word “Macedonian” is dropped but the citizenship designation remains.

To what extent Macedonia will be able to affirm its identity in NATO, which it officially joined and where it should have veto power and influence over the institutions in cases like this one, or the European Union, will be an important battleground with Greece and Bulgaria in the future identity fights. Bulgaria is currently demanding that Macedonia abandons the option of making the Macedonian language into an official language of the European Union.