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.
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15 thoughts on “A rose is a rose”
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Any internationally recognized, independent and sovereign state should have the right to call itself anything it wants. One state’s effort to blackball or blackmail another over its name should have no support from anyone. As Greece is having other problems just now, maybe it is time to squeeze it. Turnabout is fair play.
It has never been about the name. It is about about claims on territory. If Macedonia would stop its nonsense with the statues, the Alexander the Great Airport, etc. Greece would stop making trouble about the name.
But for Gruevski – whose family was driven from Greece in the civil war – this is serious business about which he doesn’t want to give up. Making it even more complex is that the Slav(icized) Macedonians like to stress that they live just as long as the Albanians in the region and Alexander is a good tool to do that.
This is a typical point where both sides are a bit right. Jumping in and throwing our support behind one side is not a wise move. It is what we did in Yugoslavia and we know how that worked out: it strengthened extremists on both sides.
A better strategy would be to address the underlying issue: the people expelled during the Greek civil war. Greece is obviously not in a position to indemnify everybody but in negotiations it might be able to do some symbolic concessions that would defang the issue.
If a ICJ ruling is a “‘stick’ that it can’t really use” in NATO and EU, then Macedonia does not need NATO and EU as organizations that do not obey to international law tribunal.
BTW, NOBODY except Greece uses FYROM as an acronym. Please don’t do it. IT IS VERY INSULTING.
“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 Greek accusations about Macedonia’s alleged territorial designs against Greece are utterly unfounded and serve only as an excuse. And even if (purely hypothetically) Macedonia fostered such an ambition, it inherently lacks wherewithals to achieve it.
In fact, it is Macedonia that should fear hegemonist intentions on the part of some of its neighbors, including Greece.
The territorial designs of the Republic of Macedonia can be found in its official maps of ‘ethnic Macedonia, in its school books and in its use of the term ‘Macedonia’. Its irredentist designs target all so-called ethnic Macedonian in Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. So even if the name is a non-issue the irredentism and fascist style maps of this government is very real.
Yeah, right… But you have no links for the “maps of this government”. Crap. As the Badenter commission of 1992 and ICJ ruling of 2011 show – Macedonia has no territorial claims towards any neighbor.
But Greece has – http://www.florina.org/news/2007/july06_e.asp
Macedonia secretly nurturing appetite for Greek land is an outlandish belief. Any moderately reasonable person is aware of the math between the two countries as per GDP, military spending and population. None of these categories in respect to Macedonia will ever exceed those of Greece. As a reminder and a closing statement I can’t stress it enough that Greater “fill in the blank” Balkan country is found in any given country in the region. However, for some this is a sentimental recollection of a past long gone and to others it is a design sought in any foreseeable future.
@ Martin. Are you saying that the only reason the Republic of Macedonia cannot attack Greece is that it is smaller? Kosovo is smaller than the Republic of Macedonia but it helped the destructive actions of Albanian paramilitary in the 2001 civil war. We have all seen the school books of ‘Greater Macedonia’ against all its neighbours.
Greece and ICJ can go to hell but we can all see the dangerous dreams of this government in Skopje.
Crap. No links no proofs. Read the ICJ court rouling, 15 judges decided that Macedonia is not a territorial threat to you.
If you are scared of the Civil War, don’t be. There is no SSSR to help and send arms to Greece to fight the king…
@ Kiro. Greece? King? There was no Soviet in Republic of Macedonia civil war with Albanians.
BUT let us assume Mr Kiro YOU ARE RIGHT. YOU ARE RIGHT. Does this mean you are against maps of greater Macedonia? Please dont say you are against all maps of Greater whatever country, because I wish to hear if you are ALSO against maps of ‘greater Macedonia’. Can you also confirm that there are NO maps of Greater Macedonia in official school books? Can you confirm this to us?
Yes I can. These are maps of territories where Macedonians live. Or the region of Macedonia. Or it is not the region?
You are afraid that Macedonians can kill people as they did in the Civil War. No, they will not – there is no support from the Soviets… Forget it, bro. My passport says Macedonia. My ID card. I am Macedonian.
What are you? Hellenoi? Grakoi? Makedonoi? Romaoi? Your identity crisis is not mine…
The simplest solution would be for Macedonia to buy Greece via a leveraged buyout. Their own direct contribution would be The Statue, and for the rest, they’d take out a loan based on Greece’s undoubted underlying value. The history’s still there, the islands are still there, and – outside of Greece, in the U.S., for example – the people are hardworking and honest (taxpaying). Getting Greek recognition of their name would be a trivial part of the deal, one probably not even noticed at the time of signing, but leading to EU entry in short order (meaning, among other things, they could roll over the debt at a more reasonable rate). Their corruption rating is better than Greece’s, making deals with international institutions easier, and they would have the vulture capitalist’s traditional ability to lay off staff (emigration) and restructure management (new political parties not beholden to the corporations, trade unions and associations). With these advantages, they would have every expectation of putting the enterprise back on its feet and a more-than-reasonable chance of future profits. And they would be “Macedonia” to everybody, forever. (If Greece doesn’t want the statue, they could send it to al-Iskandria as a gesture of goodwill.)
@ Kiro. Congratulations that your passport says Republic of Macedonia. and that you are pure Macedonian and here is a gold medal because you not like those confused former Ottoman Greeks, confused Albanians, confused Bulgarians. If it makes you happy that is ok but be happy in maps that show your own borders.
Those government sponsored ‘invasion maps’ published in Skopje are offensive to all your neighbors, offensive to the Albanian Macedonians (can Albanians be Macedonians or are they just outsiders in this bizar Macedonia region?) and offensive to the spirit of Europe. because every country must show what happens in its own borders.
Congratulations. You are a troll. Officially. Because you just troll around without a single link to support your accusations…
You said, “These are maps of territories where Macedonians live. Or the region of Macedonia.” We all know about those maps. Why do I have to find links?
But if it makes you happy I suggest here video about from a Skopje state school with official maps on the wall. Look from 1.30.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOJgl0rtUnM&list=PL7FD0B44FCFC3974F&index=87&feature=plpp_video
And here is from the official television channel MTB. God is the superior Macedonian who are the superior people. This is paid by the government.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OHrWO7RMp4&feature=related
And we have maps of the ‘Greater Macedonia’ in school books. I am not blaming you because it is the extreme nationalistic and fascistic government that is publishing all this and not the normal citizens of the Republic of Macedonia who want to live in peace.