If 10 years ago Macedonia was a front-runner in the reform process, today it struggles to stop moving backwards on virtually every single political criterion for EU membership. It is sadly the most devastating case against the credibility of the EU’s enlargement policy; a country where the transformative effect has indeed made a difference, but in the wrong direction. A candidate country for membership since 2005, Macedonia has received six consecutive recommendations by the European Commission to open accession talks. But the doors to the most transformative stage of the integration process – the accession negotiations - were and remain blocked by Greece, due to an on-going dispute over the use of the name Macedonia. This blockage on Macedonia’s path toward Europe has taken the incentives for reform out of the political equation and created a sense of disillusionment with the EU, clearly contributing to the making of the biggest institutional crisis in the country since its independence.