After the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the West sought to build a new security architecture in the Balkans based on compromises between ethnic communities, international mediation, and the prospect of European integration. A quarter of a century later, the results of this policy remain controversial. North Macedonia changed its name, reformed its political system, and agreed to painful historical compromises. However, its path to the European Union is still blocked. This story raises an uncomfortable question: can international guarantees provide a just peace if political decisions are primarily determined by the balance of power?
This is not about justice. It is about reality.
The phrase that political analyst Ruslan Biziayev attributes to Joe Biden during Balkan negotiations. There is no independent documentary confirmation of such a statement in the given context.
The Balkan lesson: when principles meet geopolitics
At the beginning of the 21st century, the Balkans became one of the main battlegrounds of Western diplomacy. After the wars in the former Yugoslavia, the United States and the European Union aimed to prevent a new large-scale conflict, stabilize state borders, and integrate the region into Euro-Atlantic structures.
However, stabilization instruments often contradicted the political expectations of local societies. International mediators demanded compromises that were perceived within individual countries as concessions under external pressure.
It is in this context that the phrase attributed to Joe Biden about justice and reality should be understood. Regardless of its authenticity, it reflects one of the fundamental dilemmas of international politics: moral principles may define declared goals, but practical agreements are often shaped by the influence of power balances, interests, and opportunities.
This does not mean that international law is merely a decorative element of American diplomacy. Legal norms, allied commitments, and democratic institutions do have a real impact on foreign policy decisions. However, their application often depends on political circumstances.
The administrations of Bill Clinton, George Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden differed significantly in methods and priorities. At the same time, all operated within the framework of American strategic interests, where the stability of alliances, military presence, and regional power balance remained important factors.
North Macedonia is a particularly telling example of how this logic works in practice.
The Ohrid Agreement: peace at the cost of restructuring the state
In 2001, Macedonia found itself on the verge of a large-scale internal conflict between government forces and Albanian armed groups. With the mediation of the USA and the EU, the Ohrid Framework Agreement was concluded, which became the basis for stopping hostilities and reforming the state structure.
The document included the expansion of language rights, decentralization of power, fairer representation of ethnic communities in state institutions, and special mechanisms for the protection of minorities.
One of the most important elements was the so-called badinter majority – a procedure whereby certain decisions directly affecting interethnic relations require not only a general parliamentary majority but also the support of representatives of communities that do not constitute a majority of the population.
Critics of this construction argue that it entrenched the ethnic principle in the political system and created additional opportunities for blocking decisions. Supporters emphasize that without such guarantees, the agreement to cease conflict might have proven unstable.
However, it is important not to overstate the scale of the reforms. The Ohrid Agreement did not transform Macedonia into a federation, and the mechanism of double majority does not apply to all strategic decisions of parliament. The Albanian language received expanded official status in certain legally defined areas, but this did not mean complete abolition of the special status of the Macedonian language.
The political outcome was dual. The state avoided further escalation of the conflict, but at the same time acquired a more complex system of governance, in which interethnic agreements became a permanent element of the political process.
The Ohrid Agreement helped to stop the violence but did not eliminate the contradictions that caused it. Peace turned out to be not the end of negotiations, but the beginning of a constant search for internal compromise.
The Prespa Agreement: a new name for an old promise
The next major compromise occurred in 2018 when Skopje and Athens signed the Prespa Agreement.
For decades, Greece opposed the neighboring state's use of the name ‘Macedonia,’ viewing it as potential historical and territorial claims. This dispute blocked the country's Euro-Atlantic integration.
As a result, the state agreed to the constitutional name ‘Republic of North Macedonia.’
For supporters of the agreement, this was a pragmatic step that opened the path to NATO and aimed to remove one of the main obstacles to EU membership. For opponents, it was a painful concession that touched on issues of national identity.
A particularly significant political development was the advisory referendum of 2018. Most participants supported the proposed course, but the turnout did not reach the established threshold. The government continued the constitutional procedure through parliament, which sparked sharp disputes regarding the societal legitimacy of the decision.
In 2020, North Macedonia became a member of NATO. Therefore, the assertion that the Prespa Agreement brought no results would be incorrect.
However, the situation with the European Union turned out to be much more complicated. The removal of the Greek blockage did not guarantee the completion of the negotiation process: soon new disputes arose – this time with Bulgaria.
It is here that Balkan diplomacy demonstrated one of its sharpest problems: fulfilling one political condition does not necessarily protect the candidate from the emergence of the next.
The Bulgarian knot: when history becomes a condition for EU membership
After the Prespa Agreement, it seemed that the most difficult stage in North Macedonia's path to the European Union was behind. However, soon the new obstacle became contradictions with Sofia.
Bulgaria raised claims regarding the interpretation of shared history, the position of citizens with Bulgarian identity, and the fulfillment of the bilateral Friendship Treaty of 2017. The language issue proved particularly acute: the official Bulgarian position regarding the origins of the Macedonian language contradicts the views of a significant part of Macedonian society on their national identity.
In 2022, France proposed a compromise negotiation framework. It included the inclusion of Bulgarians in the list of communities mentioned in the Constitution of North Macedonia and the fulfillment of bilateral agreements.
At the same time, the claim that the French proposal legally obligated Skopje to recognize the Macedonian language as a dialect of Bulgarian does not correspond to the content of the agreed European framework. European institutions continue to use the name “Macedonian language,” even though historical and linguistic disputes between the states remain unresolved.
For Macedonian politics, however, a different principle became fundamental: questions of national identity and historical memory effectively ended up within the procedure of European integration.
From Sofia’s perspective, constitutional recognition of the Bulgarian community is a guarantee of equality and protection for citizens who identify as Bulgarians. From the perspective of critics in Skopje, this creates a precedent whereby the neighboring state gains additional influence over internal political decisions.
As of 2026, the necessary constitutional changes remain unrealized, and the negotiation process is effectively blocked. Prime Minister Christian Mitskoski fears that fulfilling current conditions will not guarantee the absence of new demands in the future. Bulgaria, for its part, insists on the implementation of already agreed obligations.
This encapsulates the main contradiction of European enlargement: the candidate state must meet the established conditions, but it cannot always be sure that after fulfilling them, the rules will not change again.
Peace as the preservation of contradictions
The Balkan arrangements of recent decades have ambiguous outcomes.
On the one hand, the region has avoided a repetition of the large-scale wars of the 1990s. North Macedonia joined NATO, and the international presence in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina remains an important factor in restraining violence.
On the other hand, many political contradictions have not disappeared. The status of Kosovo remains a point of conflict between Belgrade and Pristina. Bosnia and Herzegovina continues to face institutional crises and separatist rhetoric. North Macedonia has been waiting for years for progress toward the EU despite the compromises made.
This raises a complicated question: is stability based on constant international mediation genuine political settlement?
For supporters of Western policy, the answer is that even imperfect agreements have allowed for the cessation of bloodshed and created space for gradual reforms.
Critics argue that external mediation often merely freezes conflicts without eliminating their causes. And the prospect of membership in international organizations has sometimes been used as a stimulus for concessions, the outcomes of which have proven to be less predictable than anticipated.
Both aspects are important for understanding the Balkan reality. The absence of a major war is a significant achievement, but it does not mean automatic reconciliation of societies.
The main lesson: guarantees come at a price, and compromises have limits
The history of North Macedonia demonstrates that international agreements do not exist outside of the political environment. Their effectiveness depends not only on legal formulations but also on the willingness of the parties to meet commitments and on the ability of international partners to uphold the agreed order.
At the same time, the Macedonian experience does not confirm that any concession to the West inevitably leads to a loss of sovereignty. The Ohrid Agreement helped end the armed conflict. The Prespa Agreement opened the door to NATO. But the EU accession process has shown the limitations of political guarantees that are not accompanied by sufficiently clear mechanisms for enforcement.
For small states, this is an especially vital lesson. When national security depends on larger allies, diplomatic compromise may be necessary. However, its long-term value is determined not only by what the state agreed to give up but also by what it received in return.
The most dangerous compromise is not the one that requires concessions, but the one after which there is no assurance that the demands have ended.
The Balkans remain a region where history directly influences contemporary politics. Disputes over language, identity, borders, and historical memory continue to shape the decisions of governments and international institutions.
However, calling a new war inevitable would be unfounded. The region has mechanisms of restraint, diplomatic channels, and economic ties that did not exist at the beginning of the 1990s.
The real danger lies elsewhere: if international guarantees are perceived as temporary political promises, trust in negotiations will gradually weaken.
The Balkan experience shows that diplomacy can stop wars but is not always capable of resolving conflicts. And between these two outcomes may lie an entire generation.
History is not an exact science in the sense that it allows for infallible predictions about the future. But it convincingly demonstrates a recurring pattern: agreements that are not perceived by the parties as just and reliable require constant external support.
In international politics, reality truly matters. However, peace built solely on a balance of power and without sufficient trust risks remaining just a prolonged pause between crises.
Inspired by the political analysis of Ruslan Biziayev. Historical assertions have been clarified considering EU documents, the positions of the parties, and studies of Balkan politics.