Muhaxhiri: For the EU, national identities in the Balkans are a very delicate issue

Sociologist from Pristina, Artan Muhaxhiri, stated that the national identities of the peoples in the Western Balkans are a "very delicate issue" for the European Union, which is why the EU approaches the topic in a "very sensitive manner."

"The EU has a very sensitive approach to national identities in the Balkans because of what happened during the 1990s, and they are aware that this is an extremely delicate issue. However, of course, there are specific cases," Muhaxhiri said to Kosovo Online.

He explains that one such case is the omission of national terminology in the EU progress report on North Macedonia’s accession process.

"A Bulgarian MP initiated this idea, and it is well known that Bulgaria has had issues with the Macedonian national identity for some time. It wants the Bulgarian minority in Macedonia to be recognized as a constitutional element," Muhaxhiri specified.

He reminds that Bulgaria and North Macedonia have had bilateral issues for years because of this, and that the solution lies in reaching an agreement.

"It is a specific issue, but I don’t think it will have a major impact. Of course, Macedonia will have to make some adjustments and find a consensus with Bulgaria if it wants to progress on its EU path. But it is quite clear that the EU is very, very cautious when it comes to the national identities of Balkan countries," the analyst noted.

Because of everything that happened in the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia, he is convinced that the EU has a "vision" of how to prevent the misuse of national identities in the Western Balkans in the future.

"The EU was very engaged, from the early 1990s, in everything that happened in the former Yugoslavia, and they have a vision of what can go wrong if national identities are misused, especially by populist politicians. We know how the EU functions – it is very complicated, very slow, and in almost all situations requires full consensus," Muhaxhiri concluded.