site.btaNorth Macedonia’s Foreign Minister: Constitutional Court Ruling on Bulgaria Protocol Will Not Affect Skopje’s Negotiations with EU

North Macedonia’s Foreign Minister Timco Mucunski stated on Friday that whatever the country’s Constitutional Court decides regarding a proposal to nullify the protocol from the second meeting of the Joint Intergovernmental Commission with Bulgaria, it will not alter the framework of Skopje’s membership negotiations with the EU. The procedure itself, he added, will not affect relations with Bulgaria, local media reported.

The protocol was signed in Sofia on July 17, 2022, by then foreign ministers Teodora Genchovska of Bulgaria and Bujar Osmani of North Macedonia. Under Article 12 of the Treaty of Friendship, Good-neighbourliness and Cooperation between the two countries, the Joint Intergovernmental Commission holds regular meetings once a year to review the Treaty's implementation, adopt measures to improve bilateral cooperation, and address any issues that may have arisen during the implementation of the treaty.

When asked at a press conference in Skopje what would happen if the protocol were declared void, and what such a decision would mean for relations with Bulgaria and the EU, Mucunski said that regardless of the outcome, it would not impact North Macedonia’s strategic goals nor alter the content of the EU-Skopje negotiation framework.

He noted that the government remains committed to the EU integration process through both its foreign policy efforts and domestic reforms.

"From this perspective, I do not believe the ruling itself will affect the achievement of our strategic goal, nor will it influence the content of the negotiation framework that the country has with the EU, because the protocol itself is not a formal legal part of the negotiation framework," Mucunski said, as quoted by the local news outlet Nezavisen.

The proposal to nullify the protocol came from Liljana Popovska, former MP and former president of the Democratic Renewal of Macedonia Party. Popovska argues that the protocol violates provisions of her country’s Constitution and of the Law on the Conclusion, Ratification and Implementation of International Agreements, as it was not ratified by the Parliament in Skopje and was not published in the Official Gazette of North Macedonia within the constitutional deadline. Popovska, quoted by the Constitutional Court, also claims that the document has an inappropriate form and content, that it goes beyond the scope of a legal act, and that it produces "harmful effects on identity-related issues for the Macedonian people, language, and state".

The protocol of the second meeting of the Joint Intergovernmental Commission states that the government of North Macedonia agrees that the next Intergovernmental Conference with the EU on closing the opening phase of the negotiations on North Macedonia's EU membership will take place after amendments to the country's Constitution enter into force. These amendments were supposed to include in the Constitution recognition of citizens who live on the territory of North Macedonia and are part of other peoples, such as the Bulgarian people.