North Macedonia, formerly named "Macedonia", marked 35 years of independence on September 8, a milestone that offers an opportunity not only to celebrate the country's birth as an independent state, but also to ask a more difficult question: What has happened to the country during those 35 years, and how much of the promise of independence has been fulfilled?

The anniversary is being celebrated with some of the biggest public events in the country's recent history. The programme began in August and has brought concerts and cultural events to cities across the country.

In Skopje, Spanish tenor José Carreras performed with leading Macedonian artists at Macedonia Square on September 1, while the celebrations culminate on September 8 with a stadium performance by global DJ and producer David Guetta at the Toše Proeski National Arena. The concert is sold out, with organisers expecting more than 50,000 people.

It is an impressive soundtrack for a country that has spent much of its 35 years dealing with political disputes, blockades and questions about its identity and place in Europe.

But the story began with a very different kind of optimism.

From Yugoslavia to independence

The road to independence started with the introduction of political pluralism. Macedonia was the only Yugoslav republic to gain independence peacefully, avoiding the wars that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, as well as the later conflict in Kosovo.

On November 11 and 25, 1990, Macedonia held its first multi-party parliamentary elections, marking the beginning of the country's transition from the one-party Yugoslav political system to parliamentary democracy.

The newly elected assembly then began building the institutions of the future independent state. Kiro Gligorov was elected president of the republic in January 1991, while Nikola Kljusev became the country's first prime minister and headed the first government formed in the new multi-party system.

The decisive moment came on September 8, 1991. Citizens went to the polls in a referendum on whether they supported a sovereign and independent Macedonia, with the right to enter into a future alliance of sovereign states of Yugoslavia. More than 95% of those who voted answered "yes". The referendum became the political foundation of independence, and September 8 has been celebrated ever since as Independence Day.

On September 18, 1991, the assembly formally accepted the referendum results, confirming the country's determination to become an independent and sovereign state.

Two months later, on November 17, 1991, parliament adopted the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia, providing the legal and institutional framework for the new state.

Independence — but with an international asterisk

The country had formally broken away from Yugoslavia, but independence marked the beginning of a new and difficult chapter, as Macedonia faced its first major challenge: securing international recognition.

On April 8, 1993, the UN General Assembly admitted the country as its 181st member. However, it was provisionally referred to within the UN as "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", pending settlement of a dispute with Greece. This was a UN designation rather than the country's constitutional name.

For Macedonians, this was an unusual beginning to international life: the country had secured a seat at the world's most important international organisation, but could not use its constitutional name in the UN system.

The dispute would dominate the country's foreign policy for the next quarter of a century.

It also had direct economic consequences. Greece imposed an economic embargo on Macedonia in 1994, contributing to the country's already difficult economic situation in the first years of independence. The embargo was lifted in 1995 after the signing of an Interim Accord, under which the two countries agreed to maintain relations while continuing negotiations over the name.

The name dispute nevertheless remained unresolved.

2001: The conflict that changed the country

In 2001, Macedonia faced its most serious internal crisis since independence, as an armed conflict broke out between government forces and the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA), raising fears of a wider war. The conflict ended with the signing of the Ohrid Framework Agreement on August 13, 2001, which introduced significant reforms aimed at strengthening the rights and political participation of the country's ethnic communities.

The agreement introduced major changes to the country's political and institutional system. It strengthened the rights of ethnic communities, especially the ethnic Albanians, expanded the use of languages other than Macedonian in areas where legal thresholds were met, provided mechanisms for more equitable representation in public institutions and government, and decentralised parts of the state.

The agreement became the foundation of Macedonia's post-conflict political order and remains one of the most important documents in the country's modern history.

One of the NLA's commanders, Ali Ahmeti, later entered mainstream politics and became the long-time leader of the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), one of the country's most influential political parties.

The conflict was over, but the question of how to build a stable, multi-ethnic state would remain central to Macedonian politics.

The Nato door closes — and the name dispute refuses to disappear

For years, Macedonia pursued Nato and EU membership, but its hopes of receiving an invitation to join Nato at the 2008 Bucharest summit were blocked by Greece's opposition over the name dispute.

Nato leaders decided that an invitation would be extended once a mutually acceptable solution to the dispute with Greece had been reached. Nato itself later explicitly stated that the decision was linked to Greece's position on the dispute.

For many Macedonians, Bucharest became a symbol of the country's frustration: reforms had been carried out, the country had participated in Nato missions and had long pursued membership, yet a bilateral dispute stood between it and the Alliance.

The dispute would continue for another decade.

Prespa: the compromise that changed the country's name

The major breakthrough in the long-running dispute with Greece came in 2018, when Skopje and Athens signed the Prespa Agreement on June 17. Under the deal, Macedonia's constitutional name was changed to the Republic of North Macedonia, a change that took effect on February 12, 2019.

The Social Democrat government, led by ex-prime minister Zoran Zaev, presented Prespa as a historic compromise that removed the main obstacle to Euro-Atlantic integration and paved the way for Nato membership and renewed hopes of EU progress. For many citizens, however, the name change was a painful concession involving national identity, and the agreement remains deeply divisive.

The international consequences were significant. On March 27, 2020, North Macedonia became Nato's 30th member, nearly three decades after independence and 12 years after its bid for membership was blocked at the 2008 Bucharest summit because of the dispute with Greece. Yet the expectation that the agreement would also unlock the country's EU path soon proved overly optimistic.

From Athens to Sofia

North Macedonia has been an EU candidate since 2005, but its accession process remained stalled, first by the dispute with Greece and later by disagreements with Bulgaria over history, language and the status of people identifying as Macedonian in Bulgaria.

After Bulgaria blocked the opening of negotiations in 2020, a compromise reached under France's EU presidency in 2022 allowed the screening of North Macedonia's legislation to begin. But progress was made conditional on constitutional amendments recognising Bulgarians among the country's communities. Those amendments have yet to be adopted.

The tensions with Bulgaria became one of the most politically divisive issues in the country and contributed to the Social Democrats’ defeat in the 2024 parliamentary elections, after which VMRO-DPMNE returned to power under Hristijan Mickoski.

The government led by Mickoski and VMRO-DPMNE has opposed making what it sees as another unilateral concession without guarantees that Bulgaria will not impose new demands.

Despite years of reforms and its Nato membership, on its 35th birthday North Macedonia remains an EU candidate unable to advance to the next stage of accession.

Mickoski: "The last challenge is to start the road"

The unresolved EU perspective was at the centre of Mickoski's Independence Day address on September 8, when he said he wanted his generation to be the one that finally brings North Macedonia into the European Union.

Mickoski said the immediate challenge was building sufficient trust between Skopje, Sofia and Brussels to move the accession process forward. He argued that this requires Bulgaria to respect the Macedonian language and community, as well as European Court of Human Rights judgments concerning Macedonians in Bulgaria. He also insisted that EU membership should not come at the expense of the country's identity, language and culture.

His position reflects one of North Macedonia's deepest dilemmas: how far should the country go in making compromises to secure EU membership, and where should it draw the line when national identity is involved?

Supporters of the constitutional amendments argue that accepting Bulgarians as a recognised community would remove the immediate obstacle and allow negotiations to advance. Opponents point to the experience with Greece, warning that concessions do not necessarily guarantee that new obstacles will not emerge.

The result is a prolonged uncertainty over the country's European future, with the debate increasingly focused not on whether North Macedonia wants to join the EU, but on what it is prepared to do — and what guarantees it expects in return.

35 years later: richer, more connected — and smaller

There is another way to measure what 35 years of independence have brought: the everyday lives of the people who live in North Macedonia.

The country is unquestionably different from the one that emerged from Yugoslavia in 1991. The economy has expanded, living standards have improved, internet access and private businesses have transformed daily life, and foreign investment and a growing services sector have reshaped parts of the economy. North Macedonians are also far more connected to Europe and the wider world.

Yet the economic gap with the EU remains significant. Eurostat estimates put North Macedonia's GDP per capita at around €8,590 in 2024, compared with an EU average of €41,620 in 2025, although the figures are from different years.

More worrying is the country's demographic decline. The 2021 census recorded around 1.83mn residents, while the statistical office estimated the population at about 1.82mn at the end of 2025. Falling birth rates, ageing and continued emigration, particularly among young and working-age people, have become major long-term challenges.

Behind these figures lies perhaps the country's biggest question: not simply how to make the economy grow, but how to create a society in which enough people see a future at home.

That may ultimately prove a greater challenge than any diplomatic dispute. A country can survive political blockades and overcome diplomatic obstacles; reversing demographic decline is far harder once an entire generation has built its life elsewhere.

For many citizens, the frustration is therefore not that nothing has changed since 1991, but that the country has changed without moving as quickly as they had hoped towards the prosperous and stable European society that independence was supposed to make possible.

There are more opportunities, greater connectivity and a considerably more modern economy than three decades ago, but corruption, political polarisation, weak institutions, low wages and the continuing gap with richer European countries remain sources of dissatisfaction. And perhaps the most visible symbol of that disappointment is the country's shrinking population.

Today, the question is whether North Macedonia can become a country where young people choose to stay, families can build a secure future, institutions command public trust and European integration finally becomes more than a promise repeatedly postponed.

On September 8, 1991, citizens voted for independence. Thirty-five years later, the country is still defining what that independence should ultimately mean.