Macedonia and Greece, again
Longstanding friend and now deputy prime minister for european integration of Macedonia Teuta Arifi stopped by SAIS this morning for a chat. That naturally set me thinking about Skopje’s problems again. It is hard to find anyone in Washington who remembers, but Macedonia was for years a source of considerable anxiety here, because of its potential to create the conditions for a generalized war in the Balkans, including between NATO members Greece and Turkey. This was why the United States, in an inspired moment of coercive diplomacy, issued in December 1992 the “Christmas warning” to Slobodan Milosevic to lay off Macedonia. The UN deployed its one and only explicitly “preventive” peacekeeping mission, UNPREDEP, there in 1995.
Considering its potential for precipitating difficulty, Macedonia has been remarkably successful in extracting itself from dicey situations. As the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia dissolved, it became independent in September 1991 without war, a fate Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia did not escape. It weathered Milosevic’s expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Albanians from Kosovo in 1999. In 2001, it suffered a near breakdown into civil war as Albanian insurgents presented a military challenge. That ended with the Ohrid agreement, whose implementation has gone a long way to consolidating the Macedonian state and ensuring equality among its citizens.
One problem has proven insoluble: Greece objects to Macedonia calling itself Macedonia. Many years of UN mediation have failed to resolve the problem, though some claim the differences have narrowed. Macedonia is called The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (The FYROM) in the UN General Assembly. In 1995, Greece and The FYROM signed an interim agreement allowing that name to be used for membership in other international organizations. Earlier this month, the International Court of Justice found Greece in violation of the accord, in particular when it blocked The FYROM’s entry into NATO at the Bucharest Summit in 2008.
That should have settled the matter, but it has not, yet. Greece hasn’t budged. Its former ambassador in Washington has suggested publicly that Athens should renounce the interim accord rather than fulfill its provisions. Skopje says it is offering to meet any time, any where to discuss the name issue.
I am biased on this question. I believe countries and people have a right to call themselves what they want. The notion that Macedonia’s preference for that name implies territorial designs on Greece is risible. It does however reflect a claim to cultural and historical affinity with Alexander the Great, a monumental statue of whom may or may not now grace Skopje, even if ethnic Macedonians are mainly of Slavic descent. The Slavs were late comers to the Balkans, entering about a millenium after Alexander.
Why would an American, other than one of Greek, Macedonian or Albanian heritage, care about all this? The main reason is that Greece’s veto of Macedonia’s entry into NATO is holding up the expansion of euroatlantic institutions. With the important exception of Croatia’s accession to the EU now scheduled for July 1, 2013, NATO and EU expansion are stalled. Keeping that process moving is vital to maintaining peace and stability in the Balkans. The FYROM’s entry into NATO at the Summit in Chicago next spring, along with Montenegro, would reassure the region and help nudge Serbia in the euroatlantic direction, even if it never decides to join NATO.
So what should Greece do? Be gracious. You lost in court. You’ve got far bigger problems with the euro and your economy. Unload this one. Go back to the negotiating table and hammer out a solution. Or step aside and allow The FYROM (and Montenegro) to enter NATO in Chicago. The technocratic government in Athens may not have the political mandate to do this, but neither does it run the sorts of risks that a more political government would face.
I’ll be surprised, but delighted, if my advice is taken.
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“With the important exception of Croatia’s accession to the EU now scheduled for July 1, 2013, NATO and EU expansion are stalled. Keeping that process moving is vital to maintaining peace and stability in the Balkans”.
Precisely because one (the EU, not NATO) half of that process was moving imprudently too fast in its earlier stage, it is now moving too slowly, which is not (only) due to the Greek-Macedonian name dispute. For that matter, don’t you think that certain countries, especially some of the Eastarn European former communist states – precisely Bulgaria and Romania – were admitted into the EU somewhat prematurely?
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“So what should Greece do? Be gracious. You lost in court. You’ve got far bigger problems with the euro and your economy. Unload this one. Go back to the negotiating table and hammer out a solution. Or step aside and allow The FYROM (and Montenegro) to enter NATO in Chicago”.
I coudn’t agree more with you on this advice to Greece. Yet, I have to ask a question in relation to Montenegro: how is Greece obstructing the country’s accession to NATO? Perhaps I risk looking as one that is asking a stupid question, but I would really want to know if there is a rule which prescribes that an aspiring country (Montenegro in this particular case) cannot join the alliance before some other aspirant (Macedonia in this case), even if the former has fulfilled all the required conditions?
“… even if ethnic Macedonians are mainly of Slavic descent. ”
How sure are we of this? A study of the genetic make-up of Macedonians (disputed, of course) supposedly showed not only that the ancient Macedonians differed genetically from ancient Greeks, but that present-day Macedonians have a smaller proportion of Slavic elements than do present-day Greeks. What is supposed to have happened to the residents of the region after the Barbarian Invasions? They weren’t all slaughtered. As in the British Isles, invaders arrived, the language changed, the family names changed, but the genes of the original population survived.
Excellent political analysis. I couldn’t agree more that Macedonia should immediately join NATO and EU, considering Macedonia’s participation in Iraq and Afghanistan NATO operations (about 500 soldiers out of 8.000 army compared to 20 Greek soldiers out of 100.000 army).
Unfortunately, ” even if ethnic Macedonians are mainly of Slavic descent” as a historical and anthropological comment is highly questionable.
http://www.igenea.com/en/index.php?c=132&st=274
NATO has long ago ceased to be a defensive organization. Nowadays it is mainly a tool for regime change. Macedonia looses some support for its army but for the rest I can’t see any reason why it should be eager to join NATO.
Western analyses of the Macedonian name question always surprise me by missing the point and this one is no exception. No wonder the West finds it impossible to solve the problem.
On the one hand it is no secret at all that Macedonia has territorial claims on Northern Greece. You don’t need the name question to see that. Just look at those statues in Skopje for example. Macedonia is smart enough not to make official claims as that would hurt its relationship with the Western world. But the Greek certainly have a reason to be worried and to want to avoid anything that would strengthen Macedonia’s position.
Macedonia has two reasons for its claims. One is that there used to live a lot of Slavic speaking people in Northern Greece but they have now nearly all been expelled (in the Greek civil war) or assimilated. Gruevski himself descends from parents who were expelled in the Greek civil war.
The other reason ethnic rivalry. Albanians like to claim that they were first and that the Slavs are just 6th century invaders. By linking themselves to Alexander the Great Slavic Macedonians can claim that they were at least as early.
As Amer and Goran already said genetic research shows that all Yugoslavs descend for the most part not from Slavs but from people who used to live there before and who were assimilated. This will not be a big surprise to anyone who has noticed that Serbs or Macedonians look quite differently from Poles and Russians – the places from which the Slav invaders came.
The solution? In my opinion we should first work on some reconciliation regarding the Slav minority in Greece. Some concessions like making it easier for the old generation that fled Greece in the late 1940s to return to their place of birth might make it easier for Macedonia to accept the status quo.
Re-Hellenization of FYRoM would still only make the Slavs there partial-Greeks, with partial rights to inheritance and legacy endowments.
Contemporary Greeks sit at top-end of hierarchy table – they stayed true and loyal to Hellenism and the Hellenic cause.
The Macedonian Name enables FYRoM to benefit from Macedonian contributions towards Western worlds cultural-historical foundation when South-Slavs contributed nothing towards the development of Western Civilizational Principles…Why should FYRoM benefit from something they despise and contributed nothing towards ?