What’s in the way of North Macedonia’s bid to join the EU?

Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov and his counterpart from North Macedonia, Dimitar Kovacevski, met on Tuesday in Skopje in an effort to improve relations and reach a breakthrough on the Bulgarian policy of blocking North Macedonia’s path to EU membership.

Since 2020, Bulgaria has blocked the opening of EU membership negotiation talks with North Macedonia because of disputes over history and language, but it faces pressure from its Western allies in the EU to be more flexible. John Psaropoulos joins The Greek Current to look at this week’s talks, break down the core issues at play here, and give the perspective from Greece.

John Psaropoulos is an independent journalist based in Greece and Al Jazeera’s southeast Europe correspondent.