This article focuses on the relation between EU leverage and domestic elites related to the differential impact of conditionality in the case of the Republic of North Macedonia. The main focus is on the influence of the low credibility of the membership perspective on the effectiveness of EU political conditionality in North Macedonia. Additionally, it examines to what extent the legitimacy of the process is determined by domestic factors. The domestic political elites strategically raise the domestic costs to the level where Europeanization becomes a highly costly process and external influences such as political isolation or rewards given in the process seem to have very weak results. The article introduces the concept of the “leverage trap” – a political discourse devised by domestic political elites apropos the EU, in turn used to increase the leverage of political elites domestically and to present the EU as an impotent actor.

本文着眼于在北马其顿共和国的情况下，欧盟的杠杆作用与国内精英之间的关系，这种关系与条件性的不同影响有关。主要关注的是成员国观点的低可信度对欧盟在北马其顿的政治条件有效性的影响。此外，它还检查了该过程的合法性在多大程度上由国内因素决定。国内政治精英从战略上将国内成本提高到欧洲化成为代价高昂的过程的水平，并且在此过程中，诸如政治孤立或给予奖励的外部影响似乎效果很弱。本文介绍了“杠杆陷阱”的概念-一种由国内政治精英围绕欧盟提出的政治论述，