site.btaEx-MP in Skopje Challenges 2022 Bulgaria–North Macedonia Protocol

A former Member of Parliament and former leader of the DOM party in the Republic of North Macedonia, Liljana Popovska, has submitted an application to the country’s Constitutional Court for the protocol from the second session of the Joint Intergovernmental Commission with Bulgaria, signed on July 17, 2022, in Sofia to be declared null and void, the Plusinfo news site reported on Thursday. 

Popovska cites alleged violations of 14 articles of the Law on the Conclusion, Ratification and Implementation of International Agreements, two articles of the Law on Foreign Affairs, and three articles of North Macedonia’s Constitution. She claims that the document, signed by then-Ministers of Foreign Affairs Teodora Genchovska (Bulgaria) and Bujar Osmani (North Macedonia), does not constitute a full-fledged legal act, but is rather a protocol from a working meeting of the joint commission.

She argues that the protocol was not negotiated or approved by the government, was not ratified by the Parliament, and not published in the Official Gazette. 

Popovska also claims that the protocol exceeds the legal framework of an executive act pertaining to a single clause of a bilateral treaty, arguing that an act of secondary legislation does not carry the legal authority to mandate changes to the constitution’s preamble, to national legislation, or to matters of identity. She says it causes serious harm to the identity of the Macedonian people, language, and state, and serves as an obstacle to North Macedonia’s international positioning and strategic development, since it has been implicitly embedded in the country’s negotiating framework and other key documents in the EU integration package.

She concludes that it is essential to formally declare the protocol null, and then initiate a transparent, legally grounded process to create a new, legally valid protocol for the implementation of the Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness and Cooperation between the Republic of North Macedonia and Bulgaria, one that respects the dignity and interests of both nations. Only such a document, she argues, can be ratified by the Parliament and lead to legal actions that foster real friendship and cooperation, the former MP argued.