Day: June 12, 2018
Not with a bang
The prime ministers of Macedonia and Greece today announced a solution to the “name” issue: they propose that the former will in the future be known as the Republic of Northern Macedonia, its language as Macedonian, and its citizens Macedonians, if I understand correctly. The new name is to be used both within Macedonia, including in the constitution, and externally, as the Greeks had insisted. The agreement needs to be approved by parliaments in both capitals as well as by referendum in Macedonia.
This is excellent news. Disagreement about the name has slowed the country’s progress towards the EU, stalled its entry into NATO, and exacerbated frictions between its Albanian and Macedonian communities. A solution would mark important progress in a lingering Balkans dispute. Progress in one place gives encouragement to others, as last year’s entry of Montenegro into NATO did. Keeping the Balkans bicycle moving forward is vital to keeping it from falling over.
Of course it isn’t finished until it’s finished. Approvals in parliaments aren’t automatic. Nationalists in both countries will oppose the new name. Referenda are likewise dicey: no telling how things will go, though the Albanians in Macedonia, who are impatient for NATO accession, will presumably turn out in force to vote in favor. That’s close to half the votes needed for approval.
This is one of those issues that has aroused passions but will soon be forgotten once the solution is approved in both countries. There are much more important issues for both Greece and Macedonia: the welfare of their citizens (including EU and NATO membership for Macedonia), defending their electoral campaigns from Russian trouble-making, and exploiting the many synergies between their economies. The sooner both countries refocus on those issues, the better.
Once the name issue is settled, the remaining Balkan tough nuts will be normalizing relations between Kosovo and Serbia as well as making the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina capable of negotiating and implementing the acquis communautaire required for EU membership. Those are not easy problems, but there is more than enough time to solve them before the window for EU membership opens again in 2023.
Republic of Northern Macedonia: it’s a solution that could have been found at any time during the last 25 years. No big bang here, but a blessing to the politicians willing to take the associated risks. Prime Ministers Tsipras and Zaev deserve a lot of credit, as do Foreign Ministers Dimitrov and Kotzias and the ever-patient UN envoy Nimetz. Congratulations! Googletranslate tells me the right words are: συγχαρητήρια! and алал да му е! I trust someone will tell me if I’ve got that wrong.
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Giving away the store for a photo op
President Trump today agreed to suspend US military exercises with South Korea during negotiations with the North and to provide Pyongyang with unspecified security guarantees in exchange for an equally vague commitment to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. He and Kim Jong-un also got their photo op, which featured a stunning array of American and Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea flags.
The quid pro quo is clear: the US will be guaranteeing the permanence of one of the most brutal dictatorships on earth and reducing its commitment to its South Korean allies in exchange for some still-to-be-determined constraints on North Korean missile and nuclear weapons capabilities. The joint statement contains no reference at all to human rights issues or North Korean abductions, though it does refer to repatriation of the remains of prisoners of war and those missing in action from the Korean War. All you need to know about this deal is what the Republicans would be saying if President Obama had negotiated it.
Kim also got a lot from the photo op, which portrayed him as the equal of the President of the United States. The handshake was a de facto acknowledgement of North Korea’s nuclear power status, legitimizing both the regime and its acquisition of nuclear weapons. It will strengthen Kim both at home and abroad. Trump has no problem with that: he seems to relish relations with dictators and disdain democrats.
Trump will also benefit from the photo op, though less than Kim. He’ll use it to assert effectiveness in foreign policy, an arena in which the Administration has had absolutely no success and a number of significant failures, not the least at the G7 meeting in Quebec last weekend. The Atlantic alliance is a shambles, relations with European and Pacific allies and trading partners have been upended, and Russia continues its occupation of part of Ukraine as well as its marauding in Syria. America is more alone in the world, and less able to exert its will, than it has been in decades.
I don’t expect Trump’s supporters to understand or acknowledge this. Their enthusiasm for Trump is unconditional. I do hope that others can see through the photo op to what it really amounts to: Trump has given away the store in exchange for very little. He is a lousy negotiator. He put himself in the unenviable position of having no alternative to this premature and ill-advised meeting. The only hope left is that now some serious American negotiators will get busy making lemonade out of Trump’s lemons.
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