The thesis deals with the enlargement framework of the European Union as a potential source of ontological insecurity in the case of North Macedonia. It does so by analysing the emergence and development of the Macedonian identity to understand which elements of the social and material environment constitute the Macedonian identity and in turn act as a source of ontological security. The latter is then applied on two critical situations, namely the Bulgarian veto to Macedonian accession negotiations in 2020 and the French proposal for resolving the dispute between Bulgaria and North Macedonia in 2022. This is achieved by employing a qualitative content analysis of 59 text units that were authored by members of Macedonian parliamentary parties in the period between the announcement of the Bulgarian veto in September 2020 and the acceptance of the French proposal in July 2022. The analysis shows that the initially divergent views on the Bulgarian veto in 2020 developed into a common threat perception across party lines. Moreover, it resulted in a common countermeasure in form of a parliamentary resolution that defined the state position of NM for the ongoing negotiations, constraining the ability on negotiating topics related to the Macedonian identity. With the French proposal, the perceptions between government and opposition started to differ significantly. Thereby, it is shown that EU enlargement can both serve as source of ontological security and insecurity. While governmental parties see EU membership as a protection of the Macedonian identity, the opposition connects the current enlargement framework to the disappearance of the own identity. The thesis, therefore, illustrates how an accession process can become deadlocked due to ontological insecurity, meaning that the current enlargement framework lacks a sufficient understanding of the impact of identity concerns within the accession process.
|
