EP rapporteur on North Macedonia Thomas Waitzin a non-paper to the European Parliament requested clarification on whether the second protocol from the sessions of the mixed Macedonian-Bulgarian commission is binding for Macedonia’s candidacy for membership in the European Union, reports Express.
Whether the protocol is a binding component of the EU negotiating framework or merely a bilateral instrument between a member state and a candidate country, without direct legal effect in the Union, referring to Articles 2 and 49 of the EU Treaty on respect for human rights, is the question in the non-paper related to Amendment 108 to the Macedonia report.
“If the protocol contains identity-political conditions (interpretations of history, linguistic classification, content of textbooks), this may conflict with the protection of the Macedonian national identity and language that the EU itself has consistently recognized. No other accession candidacy is burdened with comparable demands on identity-political issues from a Member State. This raises the question of whether the structural differential treatment of candidate countries in the accession process is compatible with the general principle of equality,” reads the statement.
