The essence of Macedonia’s relations with external actors.
“The colour revolution was a landmark event, because first time in Macedonia’s history, Macedonians and Albanians displayed their flags together” — told me a charismatic Albanian activists Zamir, who was at the epicentre of anti-government protests last year.
Large manifestations in Macedonia unfolded in 2015, following the publication of evidences, proving that Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski from conservative VMRO-DPMNE ruling party wiretapped thousands of Macedonian citizens, including government representatives, judges, journalists etc. Amid large-scale protests, the EU and the United States brokered an agreement between opposition and VMRO-DPMNE, which entailed, inter alia, resignation of PM Gruevski. Subsequently, he stepped down in January 2016 and snap parliamentary election was decided to be held in June 2016.
However, the president Gjorge Ivanov’s decision in April 2016 to stop judicial inquires against officials, suspected in involvement in wiretapping has once again triggered a massive public unrest. The president refused to resign and eventually, early parliamentary elections that were postponed twice before, was held on 11 December 2016. The former ruling party VMRO-DPMNE secured 51 seats in 120-seats parliament and failed to form parliamentary majority. The pro-Western Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) obtained 49 seats and formed a ruling coalition with Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), an ethnic Albanian party. Consequently, the leader of SDSM — Zoran Zaev became a new Prime Minister of Macedonia and protesters counted it as their victory.
Troubles in relations with immediate neighbours.
Macedonia is a country of 2.8 million people, 25% of which are ethically Albanians. Interestingly, Macedonia is the only country in the Balkan region, which did not witness war and conflict on its territory in the minds of Yugoslavia breakup in 1990s. Nevertheless, this country still has various problems with all its five neighbours - says Dragan Milosavljevic from Makfax News Agency.
More specifically, Greece claims that Macedonia should change its name, because the latter conceals its territorial ambitions on a northern Greek territory that has the same name-Macedonia. On these grounds, Athens vetoes Macedonia’s membership into NATO and EU and asserts that Skopje should use a compound name, such as “New” or “Upper” Macedonia. This country is recognised by the U.N. with the provisional name, such as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, but “we don’t like this name, because it sounds like someone recognising your country as the former soviet republic of Georgia” — Dragan told me.
Another neighbour, Bulgaria does not recognise a Macedonian identity and a Macedonian language. Sofia sees the latter as a dialect of Bulgarian and the Macedonian people as Bulgarians correspondingly. “If you prove that your ancestors were fighting within the ranks of old Bulgarian army, you can obtain Bulgarian passport and EU citizenship accordingly” — told me Bojan Stojkovski, who got Bulgarian passport last year on the basis that his grandfather was enrolled in Bulgarian army during the Second World War.
Presence of extensive Albanian minority in Macedonia conflates oftentimes groundless worries that Tirana uses Albanian minority to interfere in Macedonia’s domestic affairs. Such rumours also nurture ill-founded fears that Albanians intend to take out parts of Macedonia to create the “Greater Albania”.
Macedonia’s long-declared goal to become member of NATO incites Serbia’s discontentment and situation is further aggravated with Skopje’s recognition of Kosovo. Moreover, Serbia firmly stands with Moscow in its effort to keep Macedonia away from the West and Belgrade can even jeopardise its own relations with Skopje to obstruct Macedonia’s Western aspirations.
Finally, Macedonian government expresses its dissatisfaction with penetration of terrorists from Kosovo territory. In 2015, official Skopje argued that Kosovan terrorists were behind deadly clashes with Macedonian security forces in the Northern city of Kumanovo. Secondly, some Macedonians blame Albanians from Kosovo to support Albanian separatism and creation of an Albanian state within Macedonia.
Macedonia’s bid to join NATO…
Macedonia’s new centre-left government put integration into NATO as country’s top priority. During 2008 NATO Bucharest summit, Greece blocked Macedonia’s invitation to NATO that enabled previous VMRO-DPMNE government to capitalise on people’s disappointment and diminished its support to country’s NATO accession — says Bojan Stojkovski from Makfax.
The naming dispute with Greece has been the insurmountable hindrance for Macedonia to join NATO and EU over the last 26 years. In order to change its name, there must be a referendum in Macedonia and people are so tired with this endless dispute with Greece that majority of them tend to vote in favour of changing country’s name, — says Dragan Milosavljevic.
Macedonia expects to become 30th member of NATO during the spring 2018, however, final results of upcoming local elections in October can introduce some changes in this timeline — told me Zlatko Simonovski from the Centre for Research and Policy Making in Skopje.
… and Russia’s propaganda
Obviously, Moscow does not turn a blind eye to Macedonia’s NATO aspirations and the Kremlin overtly smears political developments in this country as part of its propaganda. For instance, the recent revolution in Macedonia has been assessed by Russian foreign ministry as ‘the US-backed unconstitutional coup’, instigated by previous government’s refusal to join Western sanctions against Russia. Furthermore, Russia supports to the claim that the West seeks to divide Macedonia along ethnic lines and improvement of Albanian minority rights is envisaged to have a detrimental effect for Macedonia, as it could instigate ethnic tensions.
“Russia views Macedonia as the last slavic bastion in southern Balkan region, which still remains beyond NATO and the EU “— says Zlatko Simonovski. Therefore, the Kremlin is doing its best to keep Macedonia away from the West.
To this end, Russia has significantly boosted its cultural outreach in this country and proactively capitalises on Macedonia’s ‘slavic identity’ and common Christian faith. Some time ago, Putin went so fas as to claim that Macedonia is a cradle of all slavic literacy and against this background, Russian ‘friendship associations’ are mushrooming here.
However, all my interlocutors have predominantly argued that Russian threat is not that much hazardous for Macedonia and they did not seem to be significantly concerned with dangerous repercussions of the Kremlin’s propaganda in Macedonia. “Its easy to be a friend to Russia, when you are geographically distanced from its border” — told me Dragan, adding that his country is a staunch friend of the United States and strategic ally of NATO. Here in Macedonia, people firmly believe that it is viable to become NATO member and in the meantime, maintain friendly relations with Russia.
I wonder what Mr. Vladimir Vladimirovich has to say about the last proposition…
