The Second Protocol is dangerous both because of the coercive nature of its individual demands and because it transforms conditionality into an open-ended process that can be continuously assessed but never conclusively satisfied.
EU accession is designed as a rule-based process in which candidate states advance by meeting defined legal and institutional criteria. While bilateral disputes between member states and candidates have always existed, they have traditionally remained external to accession governance itself. The case of North Macedonia and Bulgaria departs sharply from this pattern. In this case, historical and identity-related demands are formally embedded in the accession process through the Second Protocol adopted in 2022, extending obligations beyond the scope of the 2017 Treaty on Friendship, Good Neighborliness, and Cooperation.
Bulgaria’s demands toward North Macedonia do not arise from episodic diplomatic disagreements or shifting government preferences. They are grounded in binding state-level commitments articulated in Bulgaria’s 2019 National Framework Position and reinforced by a Parliamentary Declaration that obliges every Bulgarian government to maintain historical and identity-related conditions in its relations with North Macedonia. At the core of this framework lies an official Bulgarian narrative that treats Macedonian history prior to 1944 as Bulgarian history, the Macedonian language as a regional variant of Bulgarian, and Macedonian nationhood itself as a post-1944 artificial construction produced through what Sofia describes as the “rewriting of the history of part of the Bulgarian people” under Yugoslav rule.
Within this narrative, Macedonian national identity is not understood as a distinct historical development but as an inversion of Bulgarian identity, sustained through an allegedly “anti-Bulgarian ideological foundation.” According to this logic, removing that “anti-Bulgarian” foundation would dissolve the legitimacy of the Macedonian ethno-linguistic identity itself.
This doctrinal position shapes Bulgaria’s interpretation of the 2017 Treaty on Friendship, Good Neighborliness, and Cooperation between the two countries, particularly its reference to “shared history.” In Bulgarian official discourse, this phrase is treated not as an invitation to plural historical dialogue but as a requirement that North Macedonia adopt Bulgaria’s interpretative framework and reflect it through the work of the Joint Historical Commission in school curricula, textbooks, public commemorations, and state institutions. The Second Protocol, which records the work of the bilateral Intergovernmental Commission, functions as the key implementing instrument of this treaty.
However, its significance is not exhausted by the implementation of the 2017 Treaty itself. The Protocol contains elements that extend beyond its immediate scope and expose a deeper structural asymmetry in relations between the two states. This asymmetry arises from the fact that Bulgaria links its expectations under the Protocol—particularly with regard to history and identity—to its veto power within the EU accession process.
This asymmetry was formalized through the so-called French proposal of 2022. The Protocol was incorporated into paragraph 5 of the EU Negotiating Framework, where the obligations derived from Article 12 of the 2017 Treaty—annual reviews and measures for effective implementation, i.e. the protocols—were placed alongside the Copenhagen criteria and other core accession conditions. While this placement does not grant these bilateral commitments the formal status of EU accession criteria, it elevates them to parallel procedural weight within the advancement mechanism itself.
The European Commission is subsequently required to report on their implementation at every Intergovernmental Conference, and because each such conference requires unanimity, these bilateral obligations acquire permanent visibility and recurring leverage at every stage of the accession process.
This article argues that the Second Protocol is dangerous both because of the coercive nature of its individual demands and because it transforms conditionality into an open-ended process that can be continuously assessed but never conclusively satisfied. By transforming unresolved historical and identity disputes into continuously monitored procedural obligations, the Protocol turns scholarly disagreement into a permanent test of political compliance.
Rather than functioning as a pathway for dialogue on issues of a bilateral nature, it embeds open-ended evaluation “until EU membership,” creating a form of conditionality that remains indefinitely subject to evaluation but cannot be conclusively fulfilled without acceptance of Bulgaria’s doctrinal framework. The analysis that follows explains how this mechanism works and why it represents a dramatic departure from the logic of EU enlargement governance.
1. How Disagreement Becomes Permanent Non-Compliance
At first glance, the Joint Historical Commission established between North Macedonia and Bulgaria appears unremarkable. Bilateral historical commissions function as forums for dialogue on sensitive historical issues between states, without any prior obligation to reach interpretative alignment. They are typically designed to encourage dialogue, reduce symbolic tensions, and foster mutual understanding over time. Crucially, such commissions are not expected to “solve” history. Disagreement, partial agreement, and even deadlock are normal outcomes of scholarly engagement, particularly when questions of identity and national narrative are involved.
The Second Protocol fundamentally alters this logic. Rather than treating the Historical Commission as a forum for open-ended scholarly dialogue, it reframes the Commission as a delivery mechanism whose performance is continuously evaluated within the EU accession process. What is at stake is no longer whether historians reach consensus, but whether the absence of consensus is interpreted as a failure of compliance.
This shift begins with how the Protocol assesses past work. While it formally acknowledges the Commission’s activity between 2019 and 2022, it simultaneously records dissatisfaction by stating that this work “falls below expectations.” These expectations are anchored to Bulgaria’s pre-established doctrinal position on history and identity, which functions as the baseline of acceptable outcomes. Prior engagement does not move the process forward; it merely establishes a baseline for renewed pressure.
The Protocol reinforces this logic by repeatedly calling for “clear,” “concrete,” and “efficient” results. To a lay reader, such language may sound reasonable. In practice, it is precisely this vagueness that gives the mechanism its force. The Protocol does not specify what counts as a clear result, who determines clarity, or when results should be considered complete. Because historical scholarship does not operate through deliverables in the way regulatory reform does, these demands introduce a criterion that scholarship cannot satisfy without abandoning pluralism.
This becomes particularly consequential when the Protocol directs the Commission toward presenting the “facts and events of the common history that connects the two countries and their peoples.” While framed in the language of scientific neutrality, this formulation implicitly privileges a single interpretative horizon. Within Bulgaria’s official doctrinal framework, “common history” is understood as Bulgarian history, and Macedonian national distinctiveness prior to 1944 is treated as historically illegitimate. The Protocol’s insistence on “rigorously scientific debate” and “objective, evidence-based interpretation” does not counterbalance this bias. Instead, it supplies a procedural vocabulary through which doctrinal expectations can be enforced.
What qualifies as a “clear” or “acceptable” result is not determined by plural scholarly standards, but by alignment with a pre-established interpretative baseline derived from Bulgaria’s official position on Macedonian history and identity. Interpretations that affirm Macedonian historical continuity are therefore structurally predisposed to be judged insufficient, unscientific, or politically motivated.
Source: envato.com
This asymmetry is reinforced by the organization of epistemic authority within the process itself. Although the Protocol repeatedly invokes scientific objectivity and strict methodology, Bulgaria has consistently rejected the inclusion of neutral third-party experts, including from UNESCO or the Council of Europe, who could provide methodological guidance or situate the Commission’s work within broadly accepted scholarly standards. The exclusion of external expertise ensures that methodological arbitration remains internal to the bilateral framework, where one party’s doctrinal position already defines the boundaries of acceptable interpretation.
Rather than embedding the Commission’s work in established academic practices, the Protocol consolidates an asymmetrical epistemic structure in which claims of scientific rigor function not as safeguards of pluralism, but as instruments for disciplining historical interpretation.
A decisive step in converting disagreement into non-compliance is the elimination of exit. The Protocol explicitly states that the work of the Historical Commission cannot be unilaterally terminated. This means that persistent disagreement does not close the process, pause it, or redirect it. Instead, it remains permanently available as evidence of insufficient progress. What would normally be a legitimate scholarly outcome is transformed into an accession-relevant liability.
Implementation obligations further entrench this logic by transforming both agreement and non-agreement into grounds for continued evaluation. The Protocol requires that any outcomes produced by the Historical Commission be incorporated within fixed timeframes into school curricula, textbooks, monuments, museum exhibits, and public data sets. Yet the Commission’s persistent inability to reach agreement does not suspend these obligations. Instead, the absence of agreement itself is treated as evidence of insufficient progress. Conditionality is thus activated regardless of outcome.
In this configuration, implementation language does not presuppose completion. It functions as anticipatory pressure. Whether agreements are reached or not, exposure expands. Where no agreement exists, stagnation is reclassified as non-compliance. Where partial agreement exists, interpretation, framing, and public representation become new sites of contestation. Conditionality is therefore never exhausted. It shifts terrain. Disagreement ceases to concern what historians conclude and becomes a question of how history is presented, signaled, or left unresolved in public space.
According to established practice, the Historical Commission formulates agreed positions, while governments are responsible for their implementation. This division of roles is not problematic in itself. The problem arises when, through the Second Protocol, the intergovernmental level acquires an evaluative role in determining whether there is “progress” in the Commission’s work at all. Political assessment no longer remains confined to implementation but spills over into the evaluation of scholarly activity itself, where the absence of agreement is treated as failure rather than as a legitimate outcome of historical debate.
This logic is further extended into teaching practice through obligations to use and present original historical sources, again without neutral standards for selection or interpretation. Even the failure to produce jointly publishable results can be framed as a lack of progress, regardless of the scholarly reasons behind it.
Taken together, these provisions transform the Historical Commission from a forum of dialogue into a permanent compliance test. Progress is always subject to evaluation, but completion of the process is practically impossible without acceptance of Bulgaria’s doctrinal position. Disagreement does not remain disagreement; it is recoded as obstruction. In this way, Item 2 of the Second Protocol converts unresolved history into a standing condition of EU accession, ensuring that the absence of doctrinal alignment remains politically actionable throughout the process.
2.Why Accession Sequencing Turns Conditionality into Entrenchment
To understand why the Second Protocol creates particularly deep vulnerabilities within the EU accession process, it is first necessary to clarify how accession sequencing normally works. Accession proceeds through successive Intergovernmental Conferences that mark political and technical progress. Conditionality is designed to be demanding but finite. Once a condition is fulfilled and a stage is passed, the expectation is that it will not be reopened except in cases of serious backsliding. Progress is meant to narrow uncertainty rather than expand it.
The Second Protocol reverses this logic by combining irreversible obligations on the candidate state with discretionary consent retained by the member state. This asymmetry is most visible in the sequencing of constitutional change. Bulgaria conditions its agreement to advance accession on North Macedonia amending its Constitution to include Bulgarians among the country’s constituent peoples. North Macedonia, in turn, is compelled to explicitly accept that subsequent accession steps will occur only after these amendments enter into force. Constitutional change is politically and practically irreversible. Yet the Protocol imposes no corresponding limitation on Bulgaria’s ability to raise additional objections later in the process.
This sequencing is not merely procedural. It transforms the constitutional amendment into a gateway condition whose effects extend far beyond its immediate legal scope. The amendment does not operate in a neutral interpretative environment. Bulgaria’s official position denies the historical legitimacy of Macedonian nationhood and treats Macedonian identity as a post-1944 artificial construction derived from Bulgarian identity. Once Bulgarians are constitutionally recognized, in a context in which Bulgaria denies the historical legitimacy of Macedonian identity and language, future disputes over history, symbolism, and public discourse may be reframed as matters of constitutional protection rather than remaining within the sphere of scholarly or political disagreement. Compliance at one stage thus expands the field of evaluation rather than closing conditionality.
The risks of this design become even clearer when examining how the Protocol regulates hate speech and archival access. These provisions bypass European legal standards entirely and operate according to a fundamentally different logic.
The Protocol obliges the parties to take action against hate speech in textbooks, monuments, public inscriptions, and public discourse, yet it does so without defining the term by reference to EU law, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, or internationally recognized standards. Instead, identification and monitoring are assigned to ministries and diplomatic channels rather than judicial bodies. This omission is decisive. It allows doctrinal interpretation to supply the operative standard.
Within Bulgaria’s official framework, expressions that affirm Macedonian historical continuity prior to 1944, reject the portrayal of Macedonian nationhood as artificial, or characterize Bulgaria’s role during the Second World War as fascist occupation are routinely described as manifestations of “anti-Bulgarian ideology.” Although the Protocol is formally framed in neutral and reciprocal terms, such interpretations can be operationalized through its monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. As a result, historically grounded or academically mainstream narratives may be reclassified as hate speech.
The issue is therefore not extremist or discriminatory language, but the public affirmation of Macedonian historical distinctiveness. Hate speech ceases to function as a safeguard against discrimination and becomes a compliance instrument that disciplines identity expression.
The danger is compounded by enforcement mechanisms. Post-Intergovernmental Conference provisions allow public funding for cultural and artistic production to be suspended or retroactively reclaimed where hate speech is alleged. This extends exposure beyond formal education into films, exhibitions, publications, commemorations, and cultural memory more broadly. Because standards are undefined and assessment is political rather than judicial, cultural actors face incentives for preventive self-censorship. Expression becomes risky not because it violates European norms, but because it may trigger bilateral objections grounded in doctrinal disagreement.
The archival provisions of the Second Protocol are particularly revealing because they target a domain in which North Macedonia had already established extensive access. Even prior to the Protocol, Macedonian archives were open to individual access under domestic law, allowing researchers, journalists, and citizens to consult relevant materials on a case-by-case basis. The Protocol therefore does not introduce archival openness where none existed. It redefines an existing practice as insufficient.
Rather than assessing whether archives are accessible, the Protocol reframes archival policy as an ongoing obligation whose adequacy can be continuously questioned. Terms such as “full,” “unrestricted,” and “timely” access are introduced without defined thresholds or endpoints. No neutral body is designated to determine compliance. As a result, archival access becomes permanently contestable, regardless of how extensive access already is.
More importantly, access is not treated as an end in itself. Within Bulgaria’s official doctrinal framework and in the expectations articulated around the work of the Historical Commission, archival openness is assumed to confirm a pre-established narrative of alleged systematic repression against persons allegedly self-identifying as Bulgarians during the communist period. When archival materials do not support this interpretation, the issue is no longer framed as a matter of historical complexity or evidentiary limits. Instead, access can be portrayed as selective, evasive, or politically filtered, even when archives are formally open.
This reveals the underlying purpose of the provision. The politicization of the archives does not serve transparency. It serves alignment. Compliance is assessed not only on whether documents can be consulted, but on whether archival material validates a specific interpretative framework. Even after access is granted, disputes can be reopened on the grounds that the “wrong” conclusions were drawn or that expected confirmations failed to materialize.
The Protocol explicitly extends many of these obligations until EU membership. This temporal framing is decisive. It converts unresolved scholarly disagreement and contested historical interpretation into long-term accession liabilities. As the accession process advances and the political cost of delay increases, pressure to align intensifies, because progress is understood to require the full fulfillment of all obligations by the time of EU membership, without clearly defined criteria of compliance beyond acceptance of Bulgaria’s doctrinal framework.
In this way, accession sequencing under the Second Protocol becomes a structure of entrenchment. Irreversible obligations are front-loaded, discretionary consent is preserved, and domains such as history, archives, and public speech are transformed into renewable compliance tests. Conditionality no longer guides the candidate toward membership through defined criteria. It binds the candidate into an open-ended process of doctrinal alignment whose completion is never formally within its control.
3. What This Reveals About EU Enlargement Governance
Seen in isolation, the Second Protocol might appear to be an idiosyncratic response to a particularly difficult bilateral dispute. Read in institutional context, however, it reveals a deeper transformation in how EU enlargement governance can be reshaped from within. The danger it exposes is not only that one member state advances revisionist historical claims, but that the enlargement process itself can be repurposed to enforce open-ended bilateral alignment without formal changes to EU rules.
Traditionally, EU conditionality has been designed around closure. Conditions are demanding, but they are meant to be satisfiable. Progress is assessed against defined legal and institutional benchmarks, and advancement narrows the scope for reinterpretation. Even when political discretion plays a role, the underlying logic is cumulative. Compliance reduces uncertainty.
The Second Protocol introduces a different logic. By embedding bilateral commitments into the procedural core of accession, it disconnects conditionality from exhaustion through fulfillment. Obligations are not assessed against fixed endpoints but against evolving expectations. Disagreement does not signal the need for mediation. It becomes evidence of non-compliance. In this configuration, conditionality no longer functions as a pathway toward membership but as a mechanism of sustained leverage.
What makes this shift particularly significant is that it occurs without altering the formal architecture of enlargement. The Protocol does not redefine the Copenhagen criteria, amend EU law, or create new accession chapters. Instead, it operates through procedural incorporation. Once Article 12 commitments of the 2017 Treaty are positioned within the EU Negotiating Framework and subjected to reporting at every Intergovernmental Conference, they acquire the same recurring visibility as core accession benchmarks. Because each stage requires unanimity, bilateral dissatisfaction becomes structurally actionable at every step.
This has two broader implications for enlargement governance. First, it demonstrates how member states can externalize domestic doctrinal positions through accession procedures, even when those positions fall outside the EU’s legal and normative framework. Issues of identity, historical interpretation, and collective memory, which the EU has traditionally treated with utmost caution, can be converted into accession-relevant obligations without being translated into EU law. Conditionality thus becomes increasingly detached from common standards and increasingly shaped by bilateral power asymmetries.
Second, the Protocol illustrates how proceduralization can substitute for mediation. Rather than creating mechanisms to manage disagreement, the accession process absorbs disagreement and reproduces it as a compliance deficit. This is particularly destabilizing in domains such as history and identity, where pluralism and contestation are normal. When unresolved interpretation is treated as failure, accession governance ceases to be transformative. It becomes disciplinary.
The implications extend beyond the Macedonian case. By embedding bilateral instruments in this manner, EU accession is transformed into a fragmented and asymmetric process in which progress depends less on meeting shared, rule-based criteria than on sustained alignment with the demands of member states most invested in extracting bilateral concessions through the accession framework. Enlargement ceases to operate as a predictable, norm-governed process and instead becomes structurally exposed to the politicization of identity, history, and memory. In this configuration, accession no longer advances through the fulfillment of common standards but through a negotiated corridor of open-ended concessions, fundamentally undermining the credibility of enlargement as a rules-based and norm-driven project.
The Second Protocol therefore matters not only because it operates as a form of coercive bilateral pressure, but because it embeds coercion into the normal procedural operation of EU accession governance. Conditionality no longer leads toward closure. Instead, it stabilizes uncertainty, institutionalizes asymmetry, and turns unresolved disagreement into a permanent feature of the accession process itself.
The Danger of Abandoning Rule-Based Accession
The Second Protocol marks a qualitative shift in the operation of EU accession conditionality. It restructures the logic of compliance by transforming unresolved historical and identity disputes into permanent procedural obligations.
Through open-ended evaluation, irreversible sequencing, and discretionary consent, the Protocol converts disagreement itself into an accession-relevant liability. Compliance is continuously assessed, yet final fulfillment is structurally contingent on alignment with Bulgaria’s doctrinal interpretation of Macedonian history and identity.
This matters not only for North Macedonia, but for the integrity of EU enlargement as a governance system. By embedding bilateral doctrinal positions within accession procedures, the Protocol demonstrates how conditionality can be detached from common legal standards and repurposed as a mechanism of sustained leverage. In doing so, it shatters the predictability, credibility, and normative coherence of the enlargement process itself, replacing rule-based progression with open-ended exposure to bilateral interpretative power.
