EditSkopje’s selective sovereignty: soft landing in Belgrade, hard line against Sofia
Mickoski’s weak reply to Vučić’s words on the Serbian Orthodox Church reveals an uneven defence of national identity
Prime Minister of North Macedonia Hristijan Mickoski has chosen his battles carefully, and the choice reveals more about Skopje’s current strategic posture than any official statement. When Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić publicly listed Skopje on 4 August among the places where the Serbian Orthodox Church is simply “the same,” the North Macedonian prime minister treated the remark as an unwelcome echo from another century.
He refused to engage, brushed it aside as outdated rhetoric, and moved on. Yet the same government that declines to spar with Belgrade over identity and church jurisdiction has spent months signaling iron resolve against Sofia. The contrast is striking: Skopje jumps high against Bulgaria and lands softly in Serbia’s shadow.
On 15 August Mickoski told reporters he had no intention of commenting on Vučić’s words or entering daily political disputes over them. The Serbian president had spoken on 4 August in Mrkonjić Grad, marking the anniversary of Operation Storm. In a passage devoted to the unity of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Vučić declared that the church is the same in Mrkonjić Grad, Pirot, Sydney, Skopje, Frankfurt, Melbourne and everywhere else. In Skopje the list was heard as more than a rhetorical flourish about the diaspora. It sounded like a quiet reassertion of jurisdictional continuity at a moment when the formal relationship between the two churches is still only four years old and still contested in its finer points.
Mickoski’s answer was studied restraint. He described the Macedonian Orthodox Church – Ohrid Archbishopric of Justiniana Prima as the brightest part of Macedonian Orthodox identity, a pillar above all others for him personally. He recalled that his grandfather had written a children’s Bible. The tone was affirmative of national identity yet carefully non-confrontational toward Belgrade. Two days earlier the Holy Synod of the Macedonian church had issued its own statement. It stressed that the church fulfills its pastoral mission toward all Orthodox Christians on its canonical territory regardless of national, political or ethnic background, and that its work is guided by the Gospel rather than political platforms. The Synod’s language was measured; the prime minister’s was even more so.
The quiet acceptance of Belgrade’s frame
The mildness is not accidental. Mickoski and his VMRO-DPMNE party are closely aligned with Belgrade. Vučić’s recent remarks asserting that the Serbian Orthodox Church is “one and the same” in Skopje as in Belgrade reflect his broader vision of a “Serbian World” (or Greater Serbia) that extends spiritual and cultural influence beyond Serbia’s borders.
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Over the past two years Serbian ministers, academics and public figures have repeatedly described the territory of today’s North Macedonia with terms such as “Southern Serbia,” “Old Serbia” or references to the interwar banovina. Official Serbian commemorations linked to the period of Serbian administration have taken place on Macedonian soil, sometimes with representatives of the authorities in Skopje present. Mickoski’s government has not turned these episodes into sustained political confrontations. The same pattern now appears in the church domain. The 2022 Tomos issued by the Serbian Orthodox Church remains the operative document governing relations. The Ecumenical Patriarchate restored communion but left administrative questions to Belgrade and Skopje. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church accepted the Serbian Tomos while waiting for a pan-Orthodox resolution of the name. In this unsettled landscape, Vučić’s casual inclusion of Skopje can be read as a reminder that the older hierarchical understanding has not entirely disappeared. Mickoski’s refusal to contest it publicly keeps the temperature low.
That low temperature stands in sharp contrast to the government’s posture toward Bulgaria. North Macedonia’s EU accession path has been blocked for years by Sofia’s demands concerning history, language and the rights of citizens who identify as Bulgarian. Brussels is insisting that Skopje include Bulgarians in the constitution.
The French proposal of 2022 required constitutional changes to include Bulgarians among the country’s recognized peoples. The previous government accepted the framework; the VMRO-DPMNE government that took office in 2024 has insisted it will not amend the constitution without firm guarantees that Bulgaria will not impose new conditions later. Foreign Minister Timčo Mucunski recently confirmed that confidential talks are under way to find a lasting solution, yet he declined to reveal details, arguing that transparency could jeopardize the process. Opposition Social Democrats immediately accused the government of conducting secret diplomacy behind the backs of citizens. The government, for its part, presents the secrecy as prudent statecraft and the constitutional red lines as non-negotiable.
Jumping high, landing soft
The asymmetry is therefore clear. On the Bulgarian front Mickoski’s administration is willing to risk prolonged delay, public controversy and accusations of opacity in order to protect what it defines as national positions. On the Serbian front it prefers silence, historical distance and the language of twenty-first-century maturity. The church, which Mickoski himself calls the brightest part of Macedonian identity, becomes the arena in which that preference is most visible. A direct political clash with Belgrade over ecclesiastical language is treated as an anachronism; a hard stance against Sofia over constitutional language is treated as responsible sovereignty.
Four years after the Tomos, the relationship between the two churches remains delicately balanced. The Serbian Orthodox Church has not yet replied to the Macedonian Synod’s August statement; its next formal opportunity will come at a session of the Holy Assembly of Bishops. Until then the Tomos of June 2022 continues to define the official link. Mickoski’s government has chosen not to press the matter. The same government continues to insist that any breakthrough with Bulgaria must come with ironclad assurances that the process will not be reopened later. One neighbor is met with quiet management; the other is met with open resistance.The practical effect is that North Macedonia appears more willing to absorb symbolic and historical claims from the north than from the east. Vučić’s list of cities, which placed Skopje alongside Serbian and diaspora centers, passed with a shrug and a personal affirmation of Macedonian church identity. Bulgaria’s conditions for EU progress are met with determined refusal to move without guarantees. In the short term the approach may keep relations with Belgrade stable and free of daily friction. In the longer term it raises the question of whether a government that treats one set of identity challenges as belonging to the past century can simultaneously treat another set as existential. Mickoski has made his preference plain: he jumps against Sofia and lands, almost gently, in the direction of Belgrade.
Sources: BGNES, BIRN, Srpske Novine, Sloboden Pecat.mk
Caption: File photo: Hristijan Mickoski, Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia, and Aleksandar Vučić, President of Serbia, in Brussels, on 18 December 2024. [Council Newsroom]
Updated: August 17, 2026 - 11:06
