North Macedonia is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It gained its independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Yugoslavia. Skopje is the capital and largest city.
The Republic of North Macedonia is a candidate country since December 2005. The European Commission has been conducting accession negotiations with North Macedonia since October 2009. In 2015 and 2016, the Commission made it a condition that the implementation the Przino agreement should continue. This is a political agreement between the main political parties in North Macedonia to conduct their activities only peacefully, with the mediation of the European Union.
At the same time, there was opposition from the neighbouring Greece over the use of the country name “Macedonia”. The disagreement which lasted from 1991 till 2019 arose because Macedon was once an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece. With the intervention of the UN, the problem was solved and today, the Republic is known as North Macedonia.
In March 2020, the EU gave its formal approval to begin accession talks with North Macedonia which was endorsed by members of the European Council. Although the draft of the negotiating framework was presented to the Member States in July 2020, Bulgaria has blocked further accession negotiations of Macedonia. It alleges that Macedonia is showing slow progress on the implementation of the 2017 Friendship Treaty between the two countries.
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