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A rose is a rose

Gertrude Stein might just as well have said “Macedonia is Macedonia.”  The trouble is, the Greeks don’t like to hear it.

This is one of the least interesting problems resulting from the breakup of former Yugoslavia.  Its “Republic of Macedonia,” one of six republics  that constituted Socialist Yugoslavia, became independent in 1991.  But Greece, its neighbor to the south, objected to the use of “Macedonia,”  claiming that appellation belongs exclusively to Greece and its use by the northern neighbor implied territorial claims to Greek territory.  The newly independent country entered the United Nations as The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (last time I was there it was alphabetized under “T” on the voting board at the UN General Assembly).

Athens and Skopje signed an “interim accord” in 1995 supposedly regulating the issue, but Greece claims Macedonia (oops, The FYROM) has violated it while the International Court of Justice (ICJ) decided last December that Greece had definitely violated it by blocking The FYROM’s entry into NATO at the Bucharest Summit in 2008.  There is an opportunity to correct this injustice at the NATO Summit in Chicago in May. Efforts to resolve the issue have been ongoing since the early 1990s in UN-sponsored talks, mediated since 1994 by New York lawyer Matt Nimetz.

Macedonia already has a pretty good deal on the name issue.  Just about everyone calls the country by the name Skopje prefers, and many countries (including the U.S.) have formally recognized it as the “Republic of Macedonia.”  Greece does not, but why should anyone care about that?

The unfortunate answer is that Athens can veto Skopje’s membership in NATO as well as any further progress towards membership in the EU.  Macedonia is already a candidate for EU membership but hasn’t got a date for the start of negotiations, which is an important milestone that Athens is holding hostage.

NATO membership is also important to Macedonia, which counts itself as part of the West and has deployed troops to Afghanistan under NATO command.  Alliance membership is a goal sought by both Albanians (who constitute about one-quarter of the population) and Macedonians.  It also, by the way, should end any lingering Greek fears of irredentist claims to its territory by Skopje.

The problem for Macedonia is the veto, not the name.  While there is virtue in continuing the effort to resolve the name issue, it might be wise for Skopje to stop pounding on Matt Nimetz’s door this spring for a solution to a problem Athens has but Skopje does not.  Skopje needs to go directly to Athens and mount a serious effort to convince Greece to allow it into NATO under the interim accord as The FYROM.  The ICJ decision requires nothing less.

A Macedonian joked with me recently that he would personally push a statue of Alexander the Great that has offended Greek sensibilities from Skopje to the Greek border if Athens would allow Macedonia into NATO in Chicago.  I doubt Athens is interested in the statue, but the joke points in the right direction.  Skopje needs to find out what Athens needs that Macedonia can provide.  If the government won’t discuss the issue of NATO membership, then Macedonia should find thinktanks and academics in Greece who will.

At the same time Skopje should be working with the Macedonian and Albanian American communities to make sure that the mayor of Chicago, once right hand to President Obama, raises this issue with the White House.  So far it is studiously avowing support for Skopje but doing nothing to pry open the NATO door.  Vice President Biden, when he was a senator, opposed use of “Macedonia,” which is too bad since he holds the Balkans portfolio.

Greece is vulnerable at the moment because of its parlous financial situation, but no one in Brussels or Washington wants to kick Athens while it is down.  Greek Americans are well-organized and an important voting constituency.  Macedonia has a “stick” it can’t really use.  It needs to find some other way to put the squeeze on, or “carrots” that are attractive enough in Athens to open the NATO door.  Then they can go back to not resolving the name issue at the UN for another 15 years or so, by which time everyone will have forgotten why it once seemed important.