The study continues a series of public-opinion analyses launched in 2021 and, where sufficient methodological comparability exists, places the 2026 findings within a broader longitudinal perspective.
The public opinion survey was conducted by the Institute for Political Research - Skopje (IPIS) between 20 and 25 August 2026 on a sample of 698 respondents aged 18 and above. Data were collected by telephone using CATI and a dual-frame sampling model combining fixed and mobile telephone lines. The maximum theoretical sampling error is approximately ±3.7 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.
The findings point to a moderate and critical, but not unequivocally negative, assessment of the country’s thirty-five-year foreign-policy record. On a scale from 1 to 5, the average rating is 2.84, representing a more favorable result than the average score of 2.52 recorded in the 2022 survey. The change is driven primarily by a substantial decline in the most negative assessments and a stronger concentration of responses around the middle of the scale.
NATO membership emerges as the most widely recognized concrete foreign-policy achievement, selected by 35.8% of respondents. European integration, meanwhile, appears simultaneously as the principal unfinished challenge and the most important future priority. A total of 33.1% identify the stalled EU integration process as the greatest foreign-policy failure, while 49.7% believe that membership of the European Union should be the country’s primary foreign-policy priority over the next five to ten years. The findings therefore suggest that dissatisfaction with the pace of European integration has not translated into abandonment of the underlying European strategic orientation.
Public perceptions of the country’s international position are more complex. While 42.3% assess its current international position as weak or very weak, 38% believe that it is stronger today than it was in the years immediately following independence, compared with 31.9% who consider it weaker. In perceptions of external influence, the United States and the European Union clearly dominate: 35.4% and 31.2% respectively identify them as the most influential external actors.
Citizens assess the practical effects of foreign policy relatively favorably. Overall, 63.5% believe that foreign policy contributes to economic development and the attraction of foreign investment, while positive assessments of stability and predictability in relations with international partners outweigh negative ones. At the same time, the overall historical balance remains moderately critical: 40.9% believe that failures have predominated over the past thirty-five years, while an almost identical 39.1% consider successes and failures to have been equally present.
One of the clearest findings concerns expectations regarding the further professionalization of diplomacy. As many as 81.6% of respondents believe that the country’s professional diplomatic capacities should be strengthened. At the same time, 48.9% perceive the existing diplomatic network as fully or partly politicized, compared with 26.9% who regard it as professional.
At the political and institutional level, the strongest reservations concern the lack of political consensus and the influence of day-to-day politics. A total of 60.6% believe that there is insufficient consensus among political parties regarding the country’s strategic foreign-policy objectives, while 75.8% consider day-to-day political interests to have a disruptive effect on foreign policy. By contrast, 53.1% assess the institutional division of competences itself as functional, suggesting that a substantial part of the perceived problem lies more in practical implementation and inter-institutional coordination than in the basic institutional architecture.
Stratified results reveal significant differences between ethnic Macedonian and ethnic Albanian respondents on a number of issues, particularly in the intensity of support for Euro-Atlantic integration and in assessments of political and institutional performance. At the same time, the findings also reveal important areas of convergence and do not indicate wholly separate strategic foreign-policy preferences.
Overall, thirty-five years after independence, public opinion depicts a foreign policy marked by recognizable strategic achievements alongside important unfinished political and institutional challenges. The central challenge for the period ahead therefore lies less in redefining the country’s fundamental strategic orientation than in ensuring its more effective, professional and coordinated implementation.
