It is one of nine current EU candidate countries, together with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine.

The use of the country name "Macedonia" was the object of a dispute with neighboring Greece between 1991 and 2019, resulting in a Greek veto against EU and NATO accession talks, which lasted from 2008 to 2019.

After the issue was resolved, the EU gave its formal approval to begin accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania in March 2020.

[2] On 24 June 2022, Bulgaria's parliament approved lifting the country's veto on opening EU accession talks with North Macedonia.

The government subsequently began the procedure of answering the questionnaire of the European Commission regarding its performance in preparation for membership in accordance with the Copenhagen criteria, a process that was finished by 31 January 2005.

After the naming dispute with Greece was solved in 2019, accession negotiations were expected to start within the same year, but in June 2019 the EU General Affairs Council decided to postpone the decision to October, due to objections from a number of countries including the Netherlands and France.

[19] As part of this deal, Greece explicitly withdrew its previous opposition, allowing the EU to approve on 26 June 2018 a pathway to starting accession talks.

[21] As part of the efforts to find a solution to the Macedonia name dispute with Greece, the Macedonian constitution was changed twice (in 1995, and then again in 2018) to formally exclude any possible territorial aspirations towards neighboring countries.

[28][29][30] Bulgarian politicians claim North Macedonia remains the only country in NATO, that is an EU-candidate, whose politics is based on communist historical and linguistic dogmas accepted by ASNOM.

[40] President Macron claimed that the European leaders had put a lot of pressure on Bulgaria to accept this deal, confirming its approval was a "very good signal".

On June 25, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sofia stated that the speed with which North Macedonia would approach the EU membership, already depended on itself.

[41] Two days before the end of the French presidency of the EU, the Prime Minister of North Macedonia Kovačevski stated that the government remains of the opinion that the agreement proposed from Paris and approved by Bulgaria is unacceptable for the country.

[3] On 17 July 2022 in Sofia, the foreign ministers of Bulgaria and North Macedonia signed a second bilateral protocol to the Treaty of Good Neighborhood and Friendship between the two countries.

According to the decision of the Bulgarian National Assembly of June 24, the signing of this protocol is a condition for Bulgaria to approve the Negotiating Framework for the Republic of North Macedonia.

[43] On 24 June 2022, Bulgaria's parliament approved lifting the country's veto on opening EU accession talks with North Macedonia.

This step will not begin until the "opening phase" has been completed, which according to the Council conclusions of July 2022 is conditional on the Assembly of North Macedonia approving the agreed constitutional amendment related to the Bulgarian minority.

North Macedonia has so far received €1.3 billion of development aid until 2020 from the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, a funding mechanism for EU candidate countries.