About Combatting anti-EU discourses and misinformation in North Macedonia and Serbia
“Combatting anti-EU discourses and misinformation in North Macedonia and Serbia” is a 2025/2026 project implemented by an international consortium of European academic institutions and organizations (Andrássy Gyula German-Speaking University Budapest, Research Centre for Cultures, Politics and Identities – IPAK, Slovak Academy of Sciences: The Institute of Political Science, Institute of Central Europe and Institute for Modern Developmen) coordinated by the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities – Skopje. It is funded by the International Visegrad fund.
This project builds on a previous IVF supported project, titled “Alliances for EU.” One of the major takeaways from the previous project is: the main issue to be tackled to help “unfreeze” the negotiations is the misinformation about the EU negotiating framework, rising pro-Russian narratives painting the EU as undemocratic. The project we are proposing now is focusing on a relatively recent phenomenon, namely the virtual indistinguishability between pro-EU and anti-EU actors. In North Macedonia, the traditional pro-EU civil society actors have suddenly turned into “disappointed Europeans,” who reject the Framework consistently dubbing it the “French Proposal,” interpreting it as undemocratic pro-Bulgarian trap set by the EU, appeals to abandon EU accession have been overwhelming in the public, launched by the political left and right. The discourse of disillusionment with the EU and the impossibility to distinguish between pro-EU and anti-EU actors is something that marks Serbia as well: the actors differ in relation to the question of authoritarianism and open pro-Russian positions(those opposing Aleksandar Vucic), but there is a wide consensus about a disillusionment with the EU. Thus, we are not facing simple misinformation or disinformation that can be tackled by fact-checking only, but by revealing narrative building by actors clearly identified in a recent study commissioned by the German Bundestag (ISD, Mediaweb: Dec. 2024) leading to a new social consensus.
What should be done to address this issue/problem? How does your project contribute to the solution?
Considering the issue of misinformation we are facing is as complex not to be able to solve it through mere fact checking, operating with the means of what we nowadays call “post-truth,” we intend to engage in an analysis of discourse building working toward a new discursive hegemony: one in which one does not need to admit anti-Europeanism in order to produce anti-European effects, opening up the discursive and value realm of other influences such as Russia, China, but also the corrosive effects of the illusion of an alternative to the EU accession the idea of Open Balkans has been offering. Our project intends to proffer analysis yielding outputs such as studies (publications), policy recommendations to the EU (both documents and advocacy events) and to the regional actors and engage in public advocacy in combatting the hegemony of the anti-European discourse in the country. We will engage in visibility and outreach resorting to contemporary alternative media, podcasts and online debates, and other formats of streaming engaging large audiences. The role of V4 in the European commitment to the EU enlargement will be put to the front dispelling the myth that the V4 are anti-European. In order to do so, we will bring closer to the Macedonian, Serbian and wider regional public the V4 voices supporting EU enlargement in Western Balkans seeking to raise awareness that there is a commitment even among the V4 mainstream, and not only some fringe groups, to EU’s enlargement in the region and for a more and better unified, geopolitical Europe.
As far as North Macedonia is concerned, there haven’t been much of domestic civil society support for either the continuation of the EU accession or the recognition of the Bulgarian minority by mentioning it in the Constitution’s Preamble. [REF., Restoring EU Credibility, Overcoming Polarization among CSO’s, Skopje, 2023] The particularity of similar efforts is that they are rare, isolated, and primarily coming from a handful of individuals and even less CSOs. Academia, in particular, the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences, has been enmeshed in nationalist pathos and appeals to “say no” to the Europeans (reject the Negotiating Framework, they keep referring to as the French or the Bulgarian proposal). The situation in Serbia is comparable, we argue based on a prior study part of our team completed for the Bundestag just a month ago. It has been the EU diplomats who have been visiting North Macedonia to express guaranties that the national identity is recognized and respected the language as well, or the envoys of the US, EU, but also Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland who have been explaining tirelessly to the public that the idea that the “French proposal” – or the Framework – could be renegotiated is fake news. What we offer is debunking, demystifying the discursive strategies of building narratives whereby an interpretation of a fact is mistaken with a fact and raise awareness of the threats to the regional prosperity if the EU track of accession is abandoned. The novelty in approach is that misinformation is tackled as anti-EU discourse rather than simple factcheck.
What is the regional relevance of your proposal?
Numerous policy analyses and scholarly studies have documented and analyzed the economic, cultural, migration related and other interests of V4 countries, as well as of the Austerlitz group and the Central Five, in Europe’s full integration of the WBs. In the recent years, these countries have done more than the other EU member states to revive the enlargement process, according to numerous studies (cf. J. Juzová, The V4 and EU Enlargement: Advocates With Limited Influence? (German Marshal Fund Publication, Dec. 2023). If the states of Central Europe demonstrate commitment to the accession of WB, the beneficial effect on the societies of this states and their citizens is logically inferred. In this case however, when these interests may not be recognized immediately by the citizens of the V4 and the Central Five Regions, it is their leaders that recognize them whereas the Western Balkans project partners offer the necessary yet gravely lacking civil society support to said commitment. Both regions would benefit eventually from a project propelling the values and maintaining the scope of a project such as this one. The most recent analysis of ISD in the region demonstrates that through misinformation that comes down to twisting narratives operating with data that is to some extent remain factually true, however with a key ingredient of misinformation that comes down to a false interpretation of a fact, a slogan or a trope is created that