Selim Ibraimi- The European Parliament (EP), in its latest report, has not given North Macedonia a good grade in the core areas of the rule of law, the fight against corruption, and the independence of the judiciary.
“North Macedonia needs to make faster progress on its path towards the EU. The Parliament regrets the limited progress since its 2025 report, in particular in the rule of law, judicial reform and the fight against corruption. Constitutional amendments remain necessary to open the first round of negotiations,” says the European Parliament’s latest 2026 report on North Macedonia.
A month ago, when this report was published, North Macedonia’s Prime Minister, Hristijan Mickoski, made various comments that the country had received the best report.
And that usually depends on how the report is read and used for domestic political purposes. The report is very clear, and has put the government in a difficult position: to move forward with reforms and a name change or to remain stuck in the same place for years.
In this regard, the Macedonian opposition SDSM has accused the government in Skopje and Foreign Minister Timco Mucunski of secret talks to unblock the current positions with the EU in the context of constitutional changes. The criticism has gone so far that the opposition in Skopje has said that Sofia and Brussels are not moving from their old positions; it is the government that has shown signs of surrender.
In reality, Mickoski’s government needs to do something, taking into account the negative reports from the EU. Even after the latest EP opinion, it is good to find a solution to soften the position and perhaps see some progress in the negotiations, with the chances of constitutional changes that could be made easier with some good-faith diplomacy from the EU and the US putting pressure on Bulgaria not to demand more from official Skopje.
However, to get all parties to the same point, it will be difficult, but it is a good approach initiated by official Skopje to change itself to encourage Bulgaria, the US and the EU to become more active in this issue.
In this case, it is very important to mention that work in the field of diplomacy, especially in that of secret diplomacy, is not easy, because it requires being away from the public. As an example, we can take the decades-long work of diplomat Matthew Nimetz on the Skopje-Athens issue, which ended in 2018. Many meetings and talks took place outside the media and public eye.
No one suffered from such diplomacy. In fact, it created the conditions and atmosphere for the parties to one day overcome their differences and sign the Prespa Agreement (2018). In this case, foreigners have not appointed a special mediator for the North Macedonia-Bulgaria dispute. Skopje has been left with the main burden of doing a lot of work on its own.
Therefore, the current position of official Skopje is understandable, although the radical left-wing opposition Levica has also expressed concerns about the major compromises that Mickoski’s government wants to make to the detriment of Macedonian identity.
While the government is focused on this problem, and has had some solid success with infrastructure projects in the east of the country, domestic politics are getting dirty, especially interethnic relations, where the government has not shown any progress in Albanian-Macedonian relations.
While the government has reduced the number of projects in reforms, the rule of law, and interethnic politics, the government can keep the topic of constitutional changes (Bulgaria) and the European dynamic for a long time.
Such continuity could bring some progress, perhaps in the near future, based on secret talks in the hope that they could help in the end to achieve some rapprochement of positions. And it could bring, if all the people involved in this process are serious.
And this, of course, should be done without any step back, as has happened so far with the European path of North Macedonia, without ignoring in this context the interethnic issues that have taken an unpredictable direction.
However, 2027 will tell whether secret diplomacy will bring another spring to North Macedonia with hopes for serious reforms.
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