Macedonian Foreign Minister Timčo Mucunski has issued a stark warning that the joint historical commission with Bulgaria will produce no results if Skopje is pressured to accept that revolutionary heroes Goce Delčev and Jane Sandanski were ethnically Bulgarian. “If they ask us to say that Goce Delčev is a Bulgarian, the historical commission will not achieve results,” Mucunski stated, adding that claims Sandanski was not a Macedonian but a Bulgarian fighting for Macedonian autonomy are “nonsense.” The minister’s remarks, made in response to a journalist’s question, frame the dispute not as a scholarly disagreement but as a fundamental challenge to Macedonia’s national identity, and by extension, its European future.
The historical commission, established under the 2017 Treaty on Friendship, Good Neighborliness, and Cooperation, has been deadlocked for years over competing narratives about figures from the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). Delčev and Sandanski, both active in the late Ottoman period, are revered as founding fathers of the Macedonian national movement in Skopje, while Sofia insists they identified as Bulgarians. Bulgaria’s 2019 “Framework Position” on EU enlargement made agreement on Delčev’s identity a condition for supporting Macedonia’s accession, embedding the historical dispute directly into the European negotiation framework. The commission’s work has stalled since 2020, with proposals to place it under UNESCO auspices or model it on Polish-German reconciliation bodies never advancing.
Mucunski’s intervention comes as Macedonia’s EU path remains blocked by Sofia’s veto, now in its sixth year. The 2022 French Proposal, which incorporated Bulgarian demands into the EU negotiating framework, requires constitutional recognition of a Bulgarian minority as a precondition for opening accession talks, a condition Skopje has resisted. Mucunski struck a nuanced tone on broader relations, acknowledging that Macedonia and Bulgaria “can agree that they have a common history, but not identical historical memory,” and pointing to other European states that share historical pasts while maintaining different interpretations of specific events. He emphasized that the state has “no luxury to be pessimistic” about European integration and remains committed to the European path, but “in a dignified manner.” He also noted that dialogue with Bulgaria has intensified recently, describing talks as necessary to overcome differences and advance the European agenda.
The stakes could hardly be higher. According to the OSW Warsaw analysis, 78% of surveyed Macedonians view Bulgaria negatively, with 26% identifying it as the greatest threat to their country, the highest figures among all states surveyed. In Bulgaria, support for Macedonia’s EU accession is the lowest in the EU at 32% in favor and 58% opposed. The unfavorable political climate in both countries, Macedonia’s eighth parliamentary election in five years took place in April 2026, while Bulgaria has experienced near continuous electoral cycles since 2021, makes compromise unlikely without external mediation. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has stated that “the ball is in the Macedonian court,” while European Council President António Costa and Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos have shown greater sympathy for Skopje’s concerns but still insist on constitutional amendments. For Mucunski and the Mickoski government, the historical commission represents both a diplomatic obstacle and a domestic red line: conceding on Delčev and Sandanski would be politically toxic at home, while refusing to do so risks permanent estrangement from Sofia and indefinite exclusion from the European Union.
