North Macedonia

North Macedonia demonstrates how naming disputes can constrain an entire economy. For nearly three decades, Greece blocked the country's EU and NATO accession over its use of 'Macedonia'—the same name as Greece's northern province. The 2018 Prespa Agreement resolved this by adding 'North,' enabling NATO membership in 2020, but EU accession then stalled on a new veto: Bulgaria now demands constitutional recognition of a Bulgarian minority. In September 2024, the EU decoupled Albania's candidacy from North Macedonia's, allowing Albania to proceed while leaving Skopje trapped. The country has been an EU candidate since 2005—two decades of waiting with 'no clear path forward.'

The path dependence is geographic as much as political. Landlocked and surrounded by EU members (Greece), NATO allies (Albania, Bulgaria), and Serbia, North Macedonia depends on Thessaloniki for port access—the same access Greece blocked with a 1994 trade embargo that devastated the fragile post-Yugoslav economy. The current government, elected May 2024, refuses the constitutional amendments Bulgaria demands, viewing them as territorial and identity concessions that would continue indefinitely.

Despite political paralysis, economic adaptation continues. Unemployment dropped from 37% in 2005 to 11.7% in Q1 2025. Investment interest grows from Turkey, Algeria, and Albania—partners outside the EU gate who don't impose accession conditions. North Macedonia maintains 65% public support for EU membership and 75% trust in EU institutions, yet functions increasingly like a creature that evolved for one ecosystem now adapting to another. The biological analogy is an organism caught between environments: too integrated with Europe to fully pivot, yet locked out by identity disputes that no amount of economic reform can resolve.