Sofia received Mucunski, then answered him the next day from the parliament floor: "There can be no renegotiation"

The meeting in Sofia was arranged at the suggestion of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who visited Macedonia last week. Foreign Minister Timčo Mucunski sat down with his Bulgarian counterpart Velislava Petrova-Chamova on 8 October. Her real answer came the next day - not at the table with Mucunski, but from the floor of the Bulgarian National Assembly, in response to a question from an MP of the nationalist Vazrazhdane party.

"Bulgaria is not taking part in consultations on renegotiating the commitments undertaken with Skopje. There is no need for any negotiations on a new agreement, because such negotiations are unacceptable to our country, as is any mediation on this subject. There can be no renegotiation," Petrova-Chamova said.

Sofia shut every door

Sofia rejected renegotiation. It rejected constitutional amendments with delayed effect - the formula that was supposed to give Macedonia some certainty that, once Bulgarians are written into the Constitution, a new round of demands will not follow. And it flatly opposed qualified majority voting in the enlargement process, an initiative Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski had welcomed as a sign that the EU sees the damage done by abuse of the veto.

The Bulgarian minister went a step further: she called the claims about renegotiation unfounded and said they could be explained by "domestic political goals in Skopje". She named the 2022 agreement as the only way forward, and writing Bulgarians into the Constitution as the first necessary step.

The heart of it is predictability

After the meeting Mucunski described the atmosphere as positive, but the positions as far apart and trust as low. Not one of the big issues has been resolved. The heart of the dispute is predictability: Skopje wants a guarantee that meeting one condition will not open the door to new demands on history, identity or language. Petrova-Chamova replies that a member state cannot guarantee in advance how the whole accession process will go.

In other words, Macedonia is being asked to take the first step with no guarantee whatsoever about the next one. In Sofia Mucunski also met Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos, who conveyed the Commission's serious interest in unblocking the process, and the next day he spoke to Dutch ambassadors about a "merit-based" process.

Brussels brought both sides to the table. Sofia used its parliament to say there will be no talks on substance. If the European mediator cannot even secure a conversation about guarantees, then who will guarantee the predictability Skopje keeps talking about?