International Scientific Conference Squaring the Circle : the New Global Dynamics (2026) [pp. 119-123]
AUTHOR(S) / AUTOR(I): Toni Mileski 
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.46793/7067.3731.119M
ABSTRACT / SAŽETAK:
North Macedonia, a landlocked country of approximately two million inhabitants, offers an instructive case study in navigating multipolarity. Since its peaceful secession from Yugoslavia in 1991, the country has pursued Euro-Atlantic integration as its primary strategic vector, concluding a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU in 2001 and receiving candidate status in 2005.
Two decades of deferral have exposed deep structural fragilities in EU conditionality. Greece’s veto over the constitutional name dispute (2008–2019) and Bulgaria’s subsequent obstruction over historical and linguistic identity created what this paper terms a „conditionality credibility gap”. The 2019 Prespa Agreement resolved the Greek dimension and facilitated NATO accession in March 2020, but Bulgaria’s conditions – requiring constitutional amendments, and in same time accepting contested historical narratives, clearly introduced identity conditionality unprecedented in prior enlargements