Is Macedonia a Regional Issue?
After few years
of a deepening political crisis marked by wiretapping scandals, street protests
and violent confrontations within the Parliament, Macedonia finally has its new
government. The result of the formation of the new government by opposition
Social Democrats’ leader Zoran Zaev was the end of 11 years of VMRO-DPMNE
governance. New coalition government was made by SDSM and the two Albanian
parties, DUI and DPA. For the first time in Macedonia since its separation from
Yugoslavia in 1991, new government announced the election of Xhaferi as Macedonia’s
first ethnic-Albanian speaker in parliament. This was the first attempt of a
new government that part of it are Albanians.
Further, Zaev
promised the Albanians about a new law that would expand the official use of
the Albanian language throughout the entire country. Even though Macedonia's
current law on languages defines Albanian as an official language, the language
is spoken only in certain places/areas.
What next for the domestic politics in Macedonia?
After the new
government formed, SDSM started to implement new reforms, domestically and
regionally, such as trying to solve the long-standing name dispute with Greece,
signing friendship agreement with Bulgaria, pushing the new law for using the
Albanian language officially. Besides all, the conflict between left and right
in domestic politics re-damages the political images of Macedonia. Because, the
opposition party ‘VMRO-DPMNE’ wants to regain its power by stalling the reforms
which are attempted by the new government. For instance, VMRO DPMNE has
launched three no-confidence motions against three ministers of Zaev’s
government. One of them is the Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov, who is
thoroughly a well-educated politician that
has served in many international public institutions, because of the
initiated harmful negotiations with Greece and Bulgaria to Macedonia’s national
interests.
On the other
hand, new government tries to make judicial reform by restoring the rule of law
and trust in the judiciary and also by being in good relation with neighbors.
These will open a new page for EU membership process. From the very beginning,
EU leaders supported the new government for its efforts to advance the EU reform agenda. But however, the
challenge is that the EU wants political cooperation between opposition and
Zaev’s government, to focus on implementing Urgent Reform Priorities[1]
and the Pržino agreement[2]
in order to bring the country back on its EU integration path. However, it will
not be easy for both sides especially before the 6th local election
which are scheduled on October 15, in Macedonia. Local elections will be a test
for both the new government and the opposition.
Consequently,
Macedonia is on the verge of another political crisis due to the fact that the
political parties kicked off election campaigns that cause shameless
manipulation. If it happens, local elections and political power struggle
within country will not help to stabilize the situation for near future.
The first
diplomatic crisis of the new government was with Serbia. The country withdrew
the entire staff of its embassy on August 20 due to "offensive
intelligence activities" against Belgrade. After telephone conversation
between the President of the Government of Macedonia Zoran Zaev and President
of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, the embassy staff returned to the country. But
what reasons behind the crisis were, firstly, the problematic of Albanians
living in Macedonia, and secondly, the neutral position of Serbia.
Firstly, Serbian
and Albanian relations are trapped between “Albanophobia”[3]
and “Albanocentrism”[4].
Creating a new coalition government with Albanians and giving them some extra
rights repsent a threatening issue for Belgrade. From the perspective of
Serbia, their concern is that the recent implementations in Macedonia will
cause the union of Albanians because these attempts might
have a domino effect in the region. Moreover, Serbia wants Macedonia to remain
neutral in the next process of Kosovo’s recognition attempts as previous
Gruevski government somehow did it during the dialogue between Serbia and
Kosovo. Lastly, Serbia used the method of intimidation by withdrawing diplomats
and accusing the new government many times about Albanians.
On the other
hand, the second regional dimension of the issue can be read over Russia. After
Guruevski government, Serbia has felt alone in the whole region due to the fact
that it has a doctrine of a military neutrality[5],
which is under growing pressure by EU. Gruevski government and Serbia were
accused by European officials because of having politically, economically and
militarily Russia’s unequivocal support in their countries. Now the situation
is changing with Zaev’s government in Macedonia who declared many time that the
EU and NATO are the country’s only future. Now EU has a chance together with
the new era in Macedonia to restrain regional move, especially Serbia’s,
towards Russia.
Moreover,
Macedonia tries to create friendly ties with Greece and Bulgaria. Minister of
Foreign Affairs of Macedonia, Nikola Dimitrov had first visit to Greece for
negotiations with Greece over the name dispute, then Greek Foreign Minister,
Nikos Kotzias visited Skopje. Two
countries decided to negotiate the dispute and to overcome it.
On the other
hand, Bulgaria and Macedonia signed the Treaty of Friendship,
Good-neighborliness and Cooperation, which will develop strong ties between the
two countries and make the cooperation in areas as infrastructure and culture
closer. Bulgaria and Macedonia wants to prove their European views/way to EU
officials owing to the fact that both countries had really controversial
previous political period. Otherwise, close ties with Greece is a sign of good
neighborly relations. It is the first step for the negotiations, for that
reason expectation cannot be high. Because the main dispute is the issue with
Greece, which needs more guarantees regarding the future of that country.
Consequently, the
new government gives more importance to regional issues compared with the
previous government that had caused many damages to the regional relations. At
the same time, the desired momentum in domestic politics has not yet been
caught, due to the fact that VMRO-DPMNE still uses the fragile multiculturalism
to gain power back in the country, and which could create an inter-ethnic
strife. Gruevski thinks that ethnic tensions will work to win local elections.
Despite the opposition party’s obstacles, a few days ago Zaev announced his
government activities in the first 100 days, focused on reforms in five
sectors: returning people's money, the economy, the restoration of institutions
(making it more in serving the citizens), friendship with neighboring countries
and transparency in the government.
The public thinks
that many promises were not fulfilled yet. The Opposition and the promises will
be a challenge in front of the government before the local elections.
So, Zaev should
be able to establish a balance between domestic and foreign policy. It seems
that for now, the government cares more about foreign policy and primarily
seeks to gain support from EU countries. If the given promises in the internal
policy are not fulfilled, things may not go as planned for him. A new chaos
will cause the country to go backwards. Ultimately, more involvement of Russia
and more Euroscepticism will also affect other countries in the region.
[1] “Urgent Reform Priorities For The Former
Yugoslav Republıc Of Macedonia”, www.eeas.europa.eu, June 2015
[3] Anti-Albanian sentiment
[4] judging another culture solely by the
values and standards of Albanians’ own culture
[5] It is a kind of balanced position on
relations with military alliances, especially between Russia and USA.
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