ISSN: 2560-1601

Vol. 6, No. 4 (MK)

April 2018

Macedonia External Relations briefing:

Macedonia’s Foreign Policy in 2018

Anastas Vangeli

1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11.

+36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu Past and Present Attempts to Solve the Name Dispute Between Macedonia and

Introduction The key reason for the emergence of the asymmetrical name dispute is the fact that Greece treats the existence of Macedonia (a state that uses the name Macedonia and develops the concept of a non-Greek Macedonian nation, ethnicity, language, and culture) as a threat. Taking as pretext the turbulent history of the 20th century, Greece’s major objection has been that the Macedonian state is founded on a notion of . Therefore, Greece has used its leverage on the international stage, as a member of the EU, NATO and in general an established diplomatic tradition to make a change of the name of Macedonia a precondition for joining international organizations. The two parties have negotiated a possible solution under the auspices of the United Nations for almost quarter of a century. In the process they have come up with various solutions, both in terms of the legal circumstances, and the actual content of the name. In this brief, we analyze the various debates and the emergence of positions on the name issue, as well as some of the solutions that have been proposed throughout the years.

Greece’s Position and Demands Starting from the premise that any usage of the term “Macedonia” to describe a non-Greek political entity is a threat towards Greece, the maximalist Greek position is that the new name of Macedonia should not contain the word “Macedonia” at all. In Greece, a number of people refer to the northern neighboring country as “Skopje” and for its citizens as “Skopjans,” because in their opinion, a Macedonian nation does not exist. The applicability of a new name should be erga omnes, meaning that Macedonia should also change its constitution and change all nation-wide documents and signage. The erga omnes

1 principle extends as far as possible - the objections to the usage of the name of Macedonia go well beyond the sphere of high politics – for instance, there have been frequent clashes at international sporting events, cultural and educational gatherings, and even in entertainment. This attitude is deeply ingrained among a large number of Greek citizens, which also renders the name issue a particularly sensitive issue in Greece, and increases the costs for its solution for any Greek government. According to this maximalist position, the name of Macedonia should be a Republic of Skopje, or Vardar Republic (based on the period under the Yugoslav Kingdom 1919-1940s, when the territory of present-day Republic of Macedonia was a Serbian province called Vardarska Banovina). This is the position held by a number of actors in Greek mass-politics – not just political parties, but also movements, as well as the Orthodox Church (a significant political player). This political stance has been affirmed during large-scale protests in Athens in . A more moderate Greek position is that Macedonia should change its name primarily for international usage (meaning that it does not necessarily have to change its documents and signage), and that the new name should be a complex one, meaning that it would include a specific geographic and/or temporal signifier that would clearly stipulate that the state of Macedonia is a different entity from the Greek province of Macedonia, while also disabling any possible irredentist interpretations. In practice, this would imply a name that would set a clear boundary between the state of Macedonia and the ancient Macedonian culture (that Greece considers a core part of its historical foundations); a clear boundary between the state of Macedonia and the Greek province of Macedonia without any possibility for (re)emergence of a concept of “Greater Macedonia” or “United Macedonia” from the era; and a legal framework that would set apart the national, ethnic and cultural characteristics of the Macedonian nation and in particular ethnic Macedonians as distinct people from Greeks, but moreover, people who are not (and do not claim to be) descendants of Alexander the Great. This line of thinking is most influential in Greek politics

2 today; it has shaped the interim agreement of 1995 and the temporal reference “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” under which Macedonia has joined the United Nations (however, hardliners have insisted calling the country FYROM in order not to pronounce the name “Macedonia” even within a complex setup; moderates usually use FYR Macedonia). Today, the more moderate Greek position has proposed solutions such as Northern or Upper Macedonia, or versions that use transliteration rather than translation (i.e. Gorna Makedonija or even a version without space Gornamakedonija). Finally, there are a tiny minority of progressive voices in Greece who are not emotionally affected by the name dispute and advocate that the Greek government should stop pressuring its neighbor to change the name. They are to be found among the far left (as well as in Syriza before it became a ruling party). Nevertheless, they do not have a significant impact in shaping the official policy on the name issue.

Macedonia’s Positions and Maneuvering Attempts Macedonia is arguably in a much worse position, because it is the side that has to make changes to its core symbols in order to resolve the name issue. Hence the dialogue on the name issue has been accompanied with a lot of emotions. While in principle roughly half of the Macedonian citizens are opposed to changing then name (according to the latest opinion polls 47%, which is a decrease compared to past years), others accept a transactional logic according to which a compromise is a prerequisite step to unblock Macedonia’s accession to the EU and NATO, and therefore the name should be changed for getting something in return. Hence, there are two main lines of the public debates in the country: one is if there is a name change, what is the reward to be gotten from it; and the second one is what kind of name Macedonia should accept, i.e. what price it should pay. As argued in the previous reports, the multi-ethnic character of the state plays an important role in shaping the attitudes towards the name dispute. While

3 the majority of ethnic Macedonians are opposed to a change of the name even in exchange for unblocking the country’s accession to the EU and NATO (60% according to the latest public opinion polls), ethnic Albanians are much more willing to accept such compromise (90% of them accept name change). Moreover, when it comes to the nature of the new name, there seems to be much more lively debate among ethnic Macedonian voices, rather than ethnic Albanian ones. The no-compromise line on the name issue is that Macedonia should leave the negotiations with Greece and do not accept any change of its name, and there is no reward that can be sufficient for this. This position is most often based on the premise of preservation of national dignity, and the survival of the Macedonian state. A minority of voices also call for “counter-measures” towards Greece, primarily in voicing support for the ethnic Macedonian minority there. However, there are also voices that approach the issue from a perspective of the international law: they argue that the interim agreements of 1995, as well as the decisions by the International Court of Justice (in favor of Macedonia) are sufficient arguments to stop the negotiations. While not necessarily anti-Western, these voices often have a consensus that the accession to the EU and NATO is simply not worth the humiliation and the risks that will be brought about by an eventual change of the name. The people who belong to the camp for making a compromise with Greece, then, are greatly divided by the way they approach the name issue and its potential solutions. For a number of them, what matters is not only the change of the name, but also the way the deal is going to be negotiated and implemented (i.e. whether this would lead to automatic EU accession talks; whether this would be the final arrangement; etc). Divisions also exist along the questions whether the name should be changed only for international or also for domestic use; whether the change of the name of the state will imply changes in the naming of the ethnic Macedonians and the ; and whether the new name will not infringe the dignity of all Macedonian citizens. In that

4 sense, Macedonia has a very vibrant and chaotic debate in which various individuals have various ideas on how the name dispute should be solved; with a number of influential voices attempting to play a role of a “godfather” of the nation, backing names such as: Republic of Northern Macedonia, Republic of Upper Macedonia, Republic of New Macedonia, Republic of Krushevo Macedonia (referring to the Krushevo Republic of 1903), Republic of Macedonia (Skopje), Democratic Republic of Macedonia, Republika Makedonija (not translated in English), and so on. This is the approach that has so far be adopted by all political elites in Macedonia from 2008 onwards – although they have had different negotiating styles. The government of VMRO-DPMNE and DUI led by Nikola Gruevski, while representing a hard line in the domestic Macedonian political debates, has worked secretly of securing a deal with Greece. Leaked tapes of conversations of the top leaders of VMRO-DPMNE showed that they were negotiating a complex name for international use, with adjectives such as Northern and Upper, and usage of the term Skopje in brackets after the name of Macedonia i.e. Republic of Upper Macedonia (Skopje). The government of SDSM and DUI led by Zoran Zaev on the other hand, has prioritized solving the name dispute in its early stages of being in power. However, despite the frequent meetings between Macedonian and Greek diplomats on almost weekly basis in the past half a year, no details had emerged up until the middle of May 2018, when the Prime Minister Zoran Zaev broke the news that Macedonia has proposed the name “Ilinden Macedonia” (referring to the holiday of the Day of St Elijah, the day of the Uprising against the Ottomans in 1903 and the founding of Macedonia as a socialist republic within Yugoslavia in 1944). This proposal will be discussed at length in the next external affairs report.

5