Macedonia naming dispute
Encyclopedia
A diplomatic dispute over the use of the name Macedonia
has been an ongoing issue in the bilateral relations between Greece
and the Republic of Macedonia
since the latter became independent from former Yugoslavia in 1991. Greece opposes the use of the name without any qualification such as 'northern' of the post-1991 constitutional name of its northern neighbour, citing historical and territorial concerns resulting from the ambiguity between it and the adjacent Greek region of Macedonia
. Greece also objects to the publication of maps showing an 'undivided' Macedonia which shows both countries as a single one, interpreting this as an attempt to claim some of their territory. Greece also objects to the ambiguous use of the term Macedonian for the neighbouring country's main ethnic group
and language
. The dispute has escalated to the highest level of international mediation, involving numerous attempts to achieve a resolution, notably by the United Nations
.
The provisional reference the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) is still currently used in relations involving states which do not recognise the constitutional name, Republic of Macedonia. Nevertheless, all United Nations member-states, and the UN as a whole, have agreed to accept any final agreement resulting from negotiations between the two countries. The ongoing dispute has not prevented the two countries from enjoying close trade links and investment levels (especially from Greece), but it has generated a great deal of political and academic debate on both sides.
negotiations aimed at resolving the dispute are ongoing.
, controlled by the Ottoman Empire up to 1913. In 1893 a revolutionary movement against the Ottoman rule began, resulting in the Ilinden Uprising on 2 August 1903 (St. Elias's Day). The failure of the Ilinden Uprising caused a change in the strategy of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) from revolutionary to institutional. It split into two wings (one fighting for autonomous Macedonia inside the Ottoman Empire or inside a Balkan Federation led by Yane Sandanski
, and a second Supremist wing supporting the inclusion of Macedonia in Bulgaria). After the Ilinden Uprising the revolutionary movement ceased and opened a space for frequent insurgencies of Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian squads into Ottoman Europe, including the ill-defined territory of the wider Macedonian region. The Bulgarian squads, supported by the local population, often engaged the Turkish army, contributing to the eventual collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The state of conflict in 1912 resulted in the First Balkan War
, and the Ottomans lost most of their European conquests.
In the next year the Second Balkan War
began and the aftermath was division in 1913 of most of Ottoman Europe into four parts, between Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania. The present-day Republic of Macedonia was included in Serbia. In 1914 the First World War started and Bulgaria occupied eastern Macedonia and Vardar Macedonia
, helped Austria-Hungary
in defeating the Serbs and creating a front
around the Greek part of Macedonia. Thus the present-day Republic of Macedonia was part of Bulgaria between 1915-1918. After Bulgaria signed a capitulation, the borders returned with small adjustments to the situation of 1913, and the present-day Republic of Macedonia became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. This period saw the creation of a separate Macedonian state and the development of nation building by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
on the third congress in Vienna in 1926 and in 1936 Josip Broz Tito
took over the leadership of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes changed its name in 1929 to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the present-day Republic of Macedonia was included as South Serbia in a province named Vardar Banovina
. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ceased to exist in 1941 as a consequence of the Second World War. Bulgaria as part of the Axis powers advanced into the territory of the Republic of Macedonia and the Greek province of Macedonia. The territory of the Republic of Macedonia was included into Bulgaria and Italian Albania.
The Yugoslav People's Liberation War began officially in 1941 in the territory of the Republic of Macedonia. On the 2nd of August in 1944 (St. Elias's Day), honouring the fighters of the Ilinden Uprising, the assembly of the people constituted the Macedonian state as a federal state within the framework of the future Yugoslav federation. In 1946 the People's Republic of Macedonia
was established as federal part of the newly proclaimed Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito
. The issue of the republic's name immediately sparked controversy with Greece over concerns that it presaged a territorial claim on the Greek coastal region of Macedonia (see Territorial concerns below). The US Roosevelt administration expressed the same concern through Edward Stettinius in 1944. The Greek press and Greek government of Andreas Papandreou
continued to express the above concerns confronting the views of Yugoslavia during the 1980s and until the Revolutions of 1989
.
The republic in 1963 was renamed the "Socialist Republic of Macedonia", when the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was renamed the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
, but dropped the "Socialist" from its name a few months before declaring independence from Yugoslavia in September 1991.
The newly independent republic's accession to the United Nations and recognition by the European Community (EC) was delayed by strong Greek opposition. Although the Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on the former Yugoslavia
declared that the Republic of Macedonia met the conditions set by the EC for international recognition, Greece opposed the international community recognising the Republic due to a number of objections concerning the country's name, flag and constitution. In an effort to block the European Community from recognising the Republic, the Greek government persuaded the EC to adopt a common declaration establishing conditions for recognition which included a ban on "territorial claims towards a neighbouring Community state, hostile propaganda and the use of a denomination that implies territorial claims".
In Greece, about one million Greek Macedonians
participated in the 1992 "Rally for Macedonia" (Greek: Συλλαλητήριο για τη Μακεδονία), a very large demonstration that took place in the streets of Thessaloniki
in 1992. The point of the rally was to object to "Macedonia" being a part of the name of then newly established Republic of Macedonia
. In a following major rally in Australia
, held in Melbourne
and organised by the Macedonians
of Greek diaspora
that has a strong presence there, about 100,000 people protested. The major slogan of these rallies was "Macedonia is Greek" (Greek: H Μακεδονία είναι ελληνική).
Greece's major political parties agreed on 13 April 1992 that the word "Macedonia" could not be accepted in any way in the new republic's name. This became the cornerstone of the Greek position on the issue. The Greek diaspora
was also mobilised in the naming controversy. A Greek-American group, Americans for the Just Resolution of the Macedonian Issue, placed a full-page advertisement in the 26 April and 10 May 1992 editions of the New York Times, urging President George H. W. Bush
"not to discount the concerns of the Greek people" by recognising the "Republic of Skopje" as Macedonia. Greek-Canadians also mounted a similar campaign. The EC subsequently issued a declaration expressing a willingness "to recognise that republic within its existing borders... under a name which does not include the term Macedonia."
Greek objections likewise held up the wider international recognition of the Republic of Macedonia. Although the Republic applied for membership of the United Nations on 30 July 1992, its application languished in a diplomatic limbo for nearly a year. A few states—Bulgaria
, Turkey
, Slovenia
, Croatia
, Belarus
and Lithuania
—recognised the republic under its constitutional name before its admission to the UN. Most, however, waited to see what the United Nations would do. The delay had a serious effect on the Republic, as it led to a worsening of its already precarious economic and political conditions. With war raging in nearby Bosnia and Herzegovina
and Croatia
, the need to ensure the country's stability became an urgent priority for the international community. The deteriorating security situation led to the UN's first-ever preventative peacekeeping deployment in December 1992, when units of the United Nations Protection Force
were deployed to monitor possible border violations from Serbia
.
, World Bank
and the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia all adopted the appellation "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" to refer to the Republic in their discussions and dealings with it. The same terminology was proposed in January 1993 by France, Spain and the United Kingdom, the three EC members of the United Nations Security Council
, to enable the Republic to join the United Nations. The proposal was circulated on 22 January 1993 by the United Nations Secretary General. However, it was initially rejected by both sides in the dispute. It was immediately opposed by the Greek Foreign Minister, Michael Papacostaninou. In a letter to the Secretary General dated 25 January 1993, he argued that admitting the republic "prior to meeting the necessary prerequisites, and in particular abandoning the use of the denomination 'Republic of Macedonia', would perpetuate and increase friction and tension and would not be conducive to peace and stability in an already troubled region."
The president of the Republic of Macedonia, Kiro Gligorov
, also opposed the proposed formula. In a letter of 24 March 1993, he informed the President of the United Nations Security Council that "the Republic of Macedonia will in no circumstances be prepared to accept 'the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' as the name of the country." He declared that "we refuse to be associated in any way with the present connotation of the term 'Yugoslavia' ". The issue of possible Serbian territorial ambitions had been a long-running concern in the Republic of Macedonia, which some Serbian nationalists still called "South Serbia" after its pre-World War II name. The government in the Republic of Macedonia was consequently nervous of any naming formula which might be seen to endorse a possible Serbian territorial claim.
Both sides came under intense diplomatic pressure to compromise. The support that Greece had received initially from its allies and partners in NATO and the European Community had begun to wane due to a combination of factors that included irritation in some quarters at Greece's hard line on the issue and a belief that Greece had flouted sanctions against Slobodan Milošević
's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The intra-Community tensions were publicly exposed on 20 January 1993 by the Danish foreign minister, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen
, who attracted the ire of Greek members of the European Parliament
when he described the Greek position as "ridiculous" and expressed the hope that "the Security Council will very quickly recognise Macedonia and that many of the member states of the Community will support this."
The Greek Prime Minister, Constantine Mitsotakis
, took a much more moderate line on the issue than many of his colleagues in the governing New Democracy
party. Despite opposition from hardliners, he endorsed the proposal in March 1993. The acceptance of the formula by Athens also led to the reluctant acquiescence of the government in Skopje, though it too was divided between moderates and hardliners on the issue.
On 7 April 1993, the UN Security Council endorsed the admission of the republic in United Nations Security Council Resolution 817
. It recommended to the United Nations General Assembly
"that the State whose application is contained in document S/25147 be admitted to membership in the United Nations, this State being provisionally referred to for all purposes within the United Nations as 'the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' pending settlement of the difference that has arisen over the name of the State." The recommendation was agreed by the General Assembly, which passed Resolution 225 on the following day, 8 April, using virtually the same language as the Security Council. The Republic of Macedonia thus became the 181st member of the United Nations.
The compromise solution, as set out in the two resolutions, was very carefully worded in an effort to meet the objections and concerns of both sides. The wording of the resolutions rested on four key principles:
One additional concern that had to be taken care of was the seating of the Republic of Macedonia in the General Assembly. Greece rejected seating the Republic's representative under M [as in "Macedonia (former Yugoslav Republic of)"], and the Republic rejected sitting under F (as in "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", which turned the reference into a proper noun rather than a description). Instead, it was seated under T as "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" and placed next to Thailand
.
In due course, the same convention was adopted by many other international organisations and states but they did so independently, not as the result of being instructed by the UN. For its part, Greece did not adopt the UN terminology at this stage and did not recognise the Republic under any name. The rest of the international community did not immediately recognise the Republic, but this did eventually happen at the end of 1993 and start of 1994. The People's Republic of China was the first major power to act, recognising the Republic under its constitutional name on 13 October 1993. On 16 December 1993, two weeks before Greece was due to take up the European Community presidency, six key EC countries—Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom—recognised the Republic under its UN designation. Other EC countries followed suit in quick succession and by the end of December, all EC member states except Greece had recognised the Republic. Japan, Russia and the United States followed suit on 21 December 1993, 3 February 1994, and 9 February 1994 respectively.
broke away from the governing New Democracy (ND) party along with three like-minded deputies who resented what they saw as the prime minister's unacceptable weakness on the Macedonian issue. This defection deprived ND of its slim parliamentary majority and ultimately caused the fall of the government, which suffered a landslide defeat in the general election of October 1993. It was replaced by the PASOK
party under Andreas Papandreou
, who introduced an even more hardline policy on Macedonia and withdrew from the UN-sponsored negotiations on the naming issue in late October.
The government of the Republic of Macedonia also faced domestic opposition for its part in the agreement. Protest rallies against the UN's temporary reference were held in the cities of Skopje
, Kočani
and Resen. The parliament only accepted the agreement by a narrow margin, with 30 deputies voting in favour, 28 voting against and 13 abstaining. The nationalist opposition VMRO-DPMNE party called a vote of no confidence over the naming issue, but the government survived with 62 deputies voting in its favour.
The naming dispute has not been confined to the Balkans, as immigrant communities from both countries have actively defended the positions of their respective homelands around the world, organising large protest rallies in major European, North American and Australian cities. After Australia recognised the "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" in early 1994, tensions between the two communities reached a climax, with churches and properties hit by a series of tit-for-tat bomb and arson attacks in Melbourne
.
Greece and the Republic of Macedonia eventually formalised bilateral relations in an Interim Accord signed in New York on 13 September 1995. Under the agreement, the Republic removed the Vergina Sun
from its flag and allegedly irredentist
clauses from its constitution, and both countries committed to continuing negotiations on the naming issue under UN auspices. For its part, Greece agreed that it would not object to any application by the Republic so long as it used only the appellation set out in "paragraph 2 of the United Nations Security Council resolution 817" (i.e. "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"). This opened the door for the Republic to join a variety of international organisations and initiatives, including the Council of Europe
, OSCE and Partnership for Peace
.
The accord was not a conventional perpetual treaty, as it can be superseded or revoked, but its provisions are legally binding in terms of international law. Most unusually, it did not use the names of either party. Greece, "the Party of the First Part", recognised the Republic of Macedonia under the term "the Party of the Second Part". The accord did not specifically identify either party by name (thus avoiding the awkwardness of Greece having to use the term "Macedonia" in reference to its northern neighbour). Instead, it identified the two parties elliptically by describing the Party of the First Part as having Athens
as its capital and the Party of the Second Part having its capital at Skopje
. Subsequent declarations have continued this practice of referring to the parties without naming them.
Secretary Cyrus Vance
was the witness of Interim Accord as Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
(i.e. the incorporation of the term "Macedonia" in the name, but with the use of a disambiguating name specification, for international and intergovernmental use). However, a compromise has not been achieved.
The inhabitants of the Republic of Macedonia are overwhelmingly opposed to changing the country's name. A June 2007 opinion poll found that 77 per cent of the population were against a change in the country's constitutional name, and 72 per cent supported the Republic's accession to NATO only if it was admitted under its constitutional name. Only 8 per cent supported accession under the reference "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia".
A number of states recognise the Republic of Macedonia by its constitutional name. A few had recognised it by this name from the start, while most others had switched from recognising it under its UN reference. By September 2007, 118 countries (61% of all UN member states) had recognised the Republic of Macedonia under its constitutional name. Some observers had suggested that the gradual revision of the Greek position means that "the question appears destined to die" in due course. On the other hand, attempts by the Republic to persuade international organisations to drop the provisional reference have met with limited success. A recent example was the rejection by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
of a draft proposal to replace the provisional reference with the constitutional name in Council of Europe
documents.
The compromise reference is always used in relations when states not recognising the constitutional name are present. This is because the UN refers to the country only as "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", although all UN member-states (and the UN itself) have agreed to accept any final agreement resulting from negotiations between the two countries. Moscow's ambassador to Athens, Andrei Vdovin, stated that Russia will support whichever solution stems from the UN compromise talks, while hinting that "it is some other countries that seem to have a problem in doing so".
Most Greeks reject the use of the word "Macedonia" to describe the Republic of Macedonia, instead calling it "ΠΓΔΜ" (Πρώην Γιουγκοσλαβική Δημοκρατία της Μακεδονίας), the Greek translation of FYROM, or Skopje
and its inhabitants "Slavomacedonians" or Skopians (Greek: Σκοπιανοί), after the country's capital. The latter metonymic name is not used by non-Greeks, and many inhabitants of the Republic regard it as insulting. Greek official sources sometimes also use the term "Slavomacedonian" to refer to the Republic's inhabitants; the US State Department has used the term side by side with "Macedonian", albeit having them both in quotation marks. The name "Macedonian Slavs" (Македонски Словени) is another term used to refer to the ethnic Macedonians. A number of news agencies have used it (although the BBC recently discontinued its use on the grounds that people had alleged it was offensive), and it is used by the Encarta
Encyclopaedia. The name has been occasionally used in early ethnic Macedonian literary sources as in Krste Misirkov
's work On Macedonian Matters (Za Makedonckite Raboti) in 1903.
Although the two countries continue to argue over the name, in practice they deal pragmatically with each other. Economic relations and cooperation have resumed to such an extent that Greece is now considered one of the Republic's most important foreign economic partners and investors.
, UN Special Representative, suggested using "Republika Makedonija-Skopje" [sic] for official purposes. Greece did not accept the proposal outright, but characterised it as "a basis for constructive negotiations". Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski
rejected the proposal and counterproposed a "double name formula" where the international community uses "Republic of Macedonia" and Greece uses "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia".
Nimetz was reported to have made a new proposal in October 2005; that the name "Republika Makedonija" should be used by those countries that have recognised the country under that name and that Greece should use the formula "Republika Makedonija – Skopje", while the international institutions and organisations should use the name "Republika Makedonia" in Latin alphabet transcription. Although the government of the Republic of Macedonia accepted the proposal as a good basis for solving the dispute, Greece rejected the proposal as unacceptable.
In December 2006, the government of the Republic announced the intent to rename Skopje Airport
"Petrovec" to "Aleksandar Veliki" (Alexander the Great). Matthew Nimetz was invited to Athens in January 2007, where he commented that the efforts to mediate in the issue over the name were "affected and not in a positive way".
the country's accession in the absence of a resolution to the dispute. The Greek foreign minister
, Dora Bakoyannis
, stated that "...the Hellenic Parliament
, under any composition, will not ratify the accession of the neighbouring country to the EU and NATO if the name issue is not resolved beforehand."
The Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis had initially denied ever committing himself unequivocally to exercising Greece's right of veto, stating instead that he would only block the neighbouring country's application for EU and NATO membership if it sought to be admitted as the "Republic of Macedonia", but on 19 October 2007, he stated that without a mutually acceptable solution to the name issue, the country could not join either NATO or the EU.
Negotiations between Athens and Skopje were resumed on the 1 November 2007, continued on 1 December of the same year, and a bilateral meeting was held in January 2008. On 19 February 2008 in Athens, the delegations of the two countries met under the auspices of the UN mediator, Matthew Nimetz. They were presented with a new framework, which they both accepted as a basis for further negotiations. The new framework was intended to be secret so that negotiations could take place, but was leaked early in the press. The full text in Greek was published initially by To Vima
and circulated speedily in all major media. It contained 8 points, and the general idea was a "composite name solution" for all international purposes. It also contained five proposed names:
On 27 February 2008, a rally was held in Skopje called by several organisations in support of the name "Republic of Macedonia". Greek nationalist party Popular Orthodox Rally
also organised a similar rally in Thessaloniki on 5 March, in support of the name "Macedonia" being used only by Greece. The Greek church and both major Greek parties strongly discouraged such manifestations "during this sensitive time of negotiation".
On 2 March 2008 in New York, Matthew Nimetz announced that the talks had failed, that there was a "gap" in the positions of the two countries, and that there would not be any progress, unless there were some sort of compromise, which he characterised as "valuable" for both sides. After Greek PM Karamanlis's warnings that "no solution equals no invitation", the Greek media took it for granted that Greece would veto
the coming NATO accession talks for the country, in the Foreign Ministers' summit on 6 March 2008 in Brussels.
Meanwhile, in a newer poll in Greece, the "composite name that includes the name Macedonia for the country" seemed, for the first time, to be marginally more popular than the previous more hard-lined stance of "no Macedonia in the title" (43% vs 42%). In the same poll, 84% of the respondents were pro-veto in the country's NATO accession talks, if the issue had not been resolved by then. All Greek political parties except the small nationalist party Popular Orthodox Rally support the "composite name for all uses" solution, and are vehemently opposed to any "double name" formula which is proposed by the republic. This shift in the official and public position was described by the PM of Greece as "the maximum recoil possible".
Following his visit to Athens in an attempt to persuade the Greek government not to proceed to a veto, the NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
implied that the onus to compromise rested on the Republic of Macedonia. In the same spirit, the EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn
, expressed his fear that "it might have negative consequences on FYROM’s EU bid
, although it is a bilateral question, Greece — as any other EU member — has the right to veto". On 5 March 2008, Nimetz visited Skopje to try to find common ground on his proposal, but announced that "the gap remains".
As earlier anticipated, on 6 March 2008, in the NATO Foreign Minister's summit in Brussels, Greek minister Dora Bakoyannis
announced that "as regards the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, ... , unfortunately, the policy followed by our neighbouring country in its relations with Greece, on the one side with intransigence and on the other with a logic of nationalist and irredentist actions tightly connected with the naming issue, does not allow us to maintain a positive stance, as we did for Croatia and Albania. ... As long as there is no such solution, Greece will remain an insuperable obstacle to the European and Euro-Atlantic ambition of FYROM".
On 7 March 2008, the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
, Daniel Fried
, made an unscheduled visit to Skopje, with the message that the two sides must cooperate with Matthew Nimetz to find a mutually acceptable solution for the naming dispute.
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Concerns have been expressed in Skopje and Athens on the stability of the governing coalition of VMRO-DPMNE and Democratic Party of Albanians
(DPA) and subsequently the negotiating power of PM Nikola Gruevski
with regards to the naming dispute, after the leader of DPA Menduh Thaçi accused the government of not complying with its requests about the rights of Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia
. Greek media considered the option that the crisis might be a diplomatic way of increasing the pressure on the Greek side. Following a call for cooperation by the president Branko Crvenkovski
, the other four major parties agreed to support Gruevski's government until NATO's convention in Bucharest
on 4 April 2008.
The possibility of a failure of the ascension talks is met with unease by the ethnic Albanian
part of the population that places more importance on EU and NATO membership than on the Macedonia name issue.
Following the declaration of Athens for a veto, the press in Skopje reported increased intervention from the United States to solve the dispute, through Victoria Nuland
, the US NATO ambassador. Antonio Milošoski announced that "Nimetz's proposal remains unchanged". The daily newspaper Dnevnik
reported that diplomatic sources claimed that this would be the last attempt from the American leadership to help in finding a solution, and that the target of this effort would be for the country to retreat from its position in regard to a "double name formula" and for Greece to accept something along these lines. It continued by saying that the US would exercise pressure on both sides to find a solution before NATO's summit, so that the alliance could be expanded. Olli Rehn
urged "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to show the correct political will in seizing the opportunity to find an acceptable solution for both parts".
A new meeting between Nimetz and the two parties was arranged on 17 March 2008 in Vienna, in the office of the former US special envoy to Kosovo and ex-president of Finland
, Martti Ahtisaari
. Nimetz noted that he did not present any new proposals, thanked the United States with whom he said he was in contact, and urged more countries to help in solving the dispute. He also announced that he was more optimistic after this meeting, and that he focused only on the solutions that could be applied by NATO's summit in April.
According to the press in the Republic of Macedonia Nimetz now limited his proposal to three names of the five that were proposed in his original framework:
Of the three, Greek media have reported that the only serious contender is "New Macedonia", being the solution favoured throughout the current round of negotiations by Washington, which regards it as the "most neutral" option. According to some reports, all three proposals were swiftly rejected by Skopje on the grounds that "neither would constitute a logical basis for a solution, given that all had been rejected by one or the other side over the last 15 years". Greek diplomatic sources have intimated that international pressure has now shifted towards the former Yugoslav republic.
A special meeting outside the auspices of the UN was arranged on 21 March 2008, at US ambassador's to NATO Victoria Nuland
's house in Brussels, between the two foreign ministers Dora Bakoyannis
and Antonio Milošoski
and with the presence of the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
, Daniel Fried
. Following the meeting, both ministers stressed for the first time their "commitment" for finding a solution until NATO's summit.
The first voices seeking compromise have started to be heard in Skopje. The president of the republic, Branko Crvenkovski
, announced: "If during the ongoing talks we can reach a rational compromise, which from the one side will defend our ethnic identity, and from the other will enable us to receive the NATO invitation, while at the same time canceling our further EU accession obstacles, then I think that this is something that must be supported, and I personally side with the supporters. Some accuse me that with my stance I am undermining the negotiating position of the Republic of Macedonia, yet I do not agree, because we are not in the beginning, but in the final phase of the negotiations. The one who will tell me that the price is high, is obliged to address the public opinion and announce an alternative scenario on how Macedonia will develop in the next ten to fifteen years."
In the same spirit, opposing New Social Democratic Party
party leader Tito Petkovski
(which by now participates in the governmental coalition until NATO's summit), announced: "I do not hide that we must proceed on an international usage name's change, with some type of addition, which in no way must put our values under question. I do not want to proceed in an auction with the name, because that will be very damaging also for the interests of the neighboring country that disputes it." He added that "the overwhelming majority of the state and the scholars, ask for a solution and for a way out, using something that does not put our identity and our cultural distinction under questioning. I think that such a solution can be found, especially if the greatest lobbyists and supporters of ours, the United States, declare that Macedonia will be safe, with a safe territorial integrity, with financial support and dynamic development. If we declare which name we support, probably there will be more terms".
However, governing VMRO-DPMNE party leader, and current prime minister, Nikola Gruevski
, when asked to comment on these statements, said: "We have different views from Mr. Petkovski, however there is still time to overcome these differences and reach a solution which will benefit the country".
Centre-left Greek newspaper To Vima
reported that the two countries were close to an agreement on the basis of the name "New Macedonia" or the untranslated native form, "Nova Makedonija".
Another meeting under the auspices of UN mediator Matthew Nimetz
was held in New York on 25 March 2008. Nimetz announced his final proposal, with a name "with a geographic dimension, and for all purposes". He also noted that the proposal was a compromise, and that the ways of implementation were also included in his proposal. The two representatives will urgently return to their countries for consultation on this proposal, given the short timeframe until NATO's summit. According to the latest Greek media reports, Nimetz revived his 2005 proposal, "Republic of Macedonia-Skopje". The news agency for Macedonian private television station A1 reported that the full proposal was:
The Macedonian government has not yet issued a statement on whether the proposal has been accepted or rejected.
Greek foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis told journalists that the proposal does not meet Greece's stated objectives.
The Macedonian foreign minister, Antonio Milošoski, stated that any reasonable solution that did not impose on the identity of ethnic Macedonians would be explored. However, he also stated that if Greece were to veto the country's entrance into NATO, compromise talks would be stopped.
Meanwhile, police in Skopje said they were investigating death threats against academics, journalists and politicians who publicly favour reaching a compromise in the dispute with Greece.
, Greece presented its case on the non-invitation of the republic. NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
announced the mutually agreed text of the NATO members, which included the following points:
A major concern cited by Greek officials was a number of maps that have circulated by nationalist groups based in Skopje depicting parts of Greece (including Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city) as being part of a future United Macedonia
, and the country's prime minister photographed laying a wreath under such a map just a few weeks before the summit. Also a poster displayed in Skopje just days before the Bucharest summit by an artist replacing the white cross on the Greek flag
with the swastika
, as a way of comparing modern Greece to Nazi Germany
. and caricatures of Greek PM Karamanlis depicted wearing a Nazi SS uniform, led to vigorous Greek diplomatic protests and international condemnation, although the government disassociated itself from the depictions and expressed it has no connection and no authority over artists' works.
According to media reports, the Greek position was strongly supported by France and Spain. Italy, Portugal, Luxembourg
, Iceland
, Belgium, Hungary, Slovakia
, and the Netherlands also showed understanding to the Greek concerns.
The US proposal for inviting the country under its UN provisional reference (FYROM) was backed by Turkey
, Slovenia
, the Czech Republic, Estonia
, Lithuania
, Denmark, Bulgaria
, and Norway.
Germany, the United Kingdom, and Canada were reported neutral.
According to polls, 95% of Greeks consider that the veto was a correct action, while only 1% oppose it. At the same time, Greece maintains its focus on promoting its neighbour's NATO and EU accession as soon as the naming issue is resolved.
voted on 11 April 2008 to dissolve itself and hold early elections
within sixty days. Following a meeting with the four major parties, president Branko Crvenkovski
announced the continuation of the negotiations for the name, despite the parliament dissolution. The parties agreed that the dispute should not be a matter of heavy political debate before the elections.
Matthew Nimetz visited Skopje on 17 April 2008 and Athens on the following day, initiating a new cycle of negotiations, but without bearing a new proposal yet.
Talks continued in New York from 30 April to 2 May 2008, though Nimetz again did not propose a new compromise name.
, Branko Crvenkovski
, announced that the Republic of Macedonia wants "serious changes" in the latest proposal and that the presented set of ideas could not be a basis for the resolution of the dispute. Prime minister Nikola Gruevski
agreed with Crvenkovski.
, however, has not yet made a comment on the newest set of proposals. It is also said, that Athens will not state its position before Skopje. In the mean time, all major opposition parties have already expressed serious concerns about the proposal since it crosses the "red line" that Greece has set on a single name to be used erga omnes
.
Before either Athens or Skopje had officially responded to the proposal, the Athenian daily Ethnos published an alleged secret diplomatic correspondence of the US State Department
. The leaked document, originally tagged as classified until 2018, was said to detail a behind-the-scenes deal between Washington and Skopje on the main provisions of the Nimetz proposal as early as July. According to the newspaper, the latest UN-sponsored set of ideas were secretly sketched to please Skopje by the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
three months earlier. The report sparked outrage in Greece, with opposition parties accusing the government of tolerating "US interference" in the UN mediation process and calling for Greece's withdrawal from the negotiations. Skopje "strongly and categorically" denied all claims of the existence of a secret deal with Washington.
for what it described as “a flagrant violation of [Greece’s] obligations under Article 11 of the Interim Accord signed by the Parties on 13 September 1995”.
Following the submissions of memorials and counter-memorials, and the public hearings, the legal positions of the parties were as follows:
Republic of Macedonia requested that:
The Hellenic Republic requested that the Court:
The Court scheduled 5. December 2011 as the date for delivering its judgement.
told the mediator and the Greek negotiator that if the Republic of Macedonia would receive a NATO membership invitation at the Alliance's next summit in April, this would be positive for the name talks. One week before the fresh name talks, Macedonian foreign minister Antonio Milošoski
told German
newspaper "die tageszeitung
" that a solution could be found "only on bilateral basis". The Republic of Macedonia indicated it could be ready to allow Greece to use another name for the country, such as "Republic of Macedonia (Skopje)", however, its citizens would decide on a referendum for that. In addition, foreign minister Antonio Milošoski
sent a letter to the Greek foreign ministry with a proposal of forming a joint committee of scholars from both countries who would work on determining the historical facts of the dispute, but this was promptly dismissed by Athens.
Conference on the topic of Completing America's Mission in the Balkans moderated by Janusz Bugajski, the Ambassador of Macedonia H.E. Zoran Jolevski
stated the following
Later on, they moved into an open discussion where the Greek Ambassador in the US Alexandros Mallias stated that Greece would accept the last proposal by the UN Mediator Matthew Nimetz
for the international use of "Republic of Northern Macedonia".
, together with the negotiators from both sides gathered in Geneva to discuss the differences and the problematic points of the dispute. According to Nimetz, the negotiations had made some progress which identified and discussed the issues that had so far stalled the solution process. Both sides were strong on their positions. Mediator Nimetz visited the Republic of Macedonia on July 6 to July 8, then Greece from July 8 to July 10.
reported that sources claim that Greece and the Republic of Macedonia appear to be close to a solution to their name dispute, and are set to agree on using the name of the Vardar
river (the longest river in the Republic of Macedonia) to differentiate the Republic of Macedonia from Greek Macedonia. It is not clear at this stage if this would mean Republic of Macedonia would be called "Republic of Macedonia of Vardar", "Republic of Vardar Macedonia", "Vardar Republic of Macedonia" or "Republic of Macedonia (Vardar)".
The Macedonian Human Rights Movement International (MHRMI) and the Australian Macedonian Human Rights Committee (AMHRC) have launched a campaign placing advertisements in newspapers and billboards across Macedonia "demanding an end to all negotiations with Greece over its name".
of New Democracy
, will be summoned to the Hague
trial issued by Skopje on Greece for breaking the 1995 Interim Agreement, after evidence was found of him addressing the Greek parliament and clearly stating that his Government (New Democracy then in power) vetoed the invitation of the Republic of Macedonia in the 2008 Bucharest NATO summit
. Also in this year the dispute was inflamed by the erection of a statue in Skopje of a mounted warrior which copies a portrait of Alexander the Great attributed to the ancient Greek sculptor Lysippus, and the inauguration of a sports stadium named after Alexander's father Philip II.
. Some of the previous countries used this name from the outset, others switched their stance after originally using the UN reference "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (notably the United States under George W. Bush
's administration), while the opposite also has been observed (as in the case of Mexico
, withdrawing its previous recognition). However, use of the UN reference is still ongoing in countries that in the past recognised the name "Republic of Macedonia". United States during President Obama
's administration, use the name "the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" and its abbrevation ("FYROM") in official documentation.
The following list consists of some of the countries and entities that use the name "Republic of Macedonia", consistently or not.
Permanent members of the UN Security Council, except France
: (NATO and G8
member ) (EU, NATO and G8 member) (G8 member)
States formerly part of SFR Yugoslavia:
(NATO member) (EU and NATO member)
Neighbouring countries, except Greece
: (EU and NATO member)
Others:
(EU member) (NATO and G8 member) (EU and NATO member) (EU and NATO member) (EU and NATO member) (EU member) (EU and NATO member) (EU and NATO member) (Burma) (NATO member) (EU and NATO member) (EU and NATO member) (EU and NATO member) (EU member) (NATO member)
, especially inhabitants of the Greek region
of Macedonia
. The Greek government officially uses the United Nations
' provisional reference for the country ("the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia") and by the main international organisations, including the United Nations
. The official reasons for this, as described by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs
, are:
The current Prime Minister and leader of the governing party, PASOK
, George Papandreou has stated that "in January 2002, when he was Minister for Foreign Affairs
, was next to a deal with Skopje leadership about using the name "Горна Македонија" ("Gorna Makedonija" - "Upper Macedonia" in Slavic). The other parties and the President of the Republic, he said, were informed but the solution process didn't work, because the Tetovo crisis
broke out." The Academy of Athens
concludes:
The Greek concerns can be analyzed as follows:
According to historian Eugene Borza the ethnic Macedonians, being a "a newly emergent people in search of a past to help legitimise their precarious present" whose ethnicity developed in the twentieth century had no history and needed one.
Greeks argue that the name Macedonia is historically inseparably associated with Greek culture, ever since the ancient kingdom of Macedonia and the ancient Macedonians
. They therefore consider that only Greeks have a historical right to use the name today, since the modern southern Slavs arrived 1,000 years after that kingdom, lacking any relation to ancient Macedonia or its Greek culture. Efforts by ethnic Macedonians to construct a narrative of ethnic continuity linking them to the ancient Macedonians in various ways and symbolic actions underlining such claims, such as the public use of the Vergina sun
symbol as a flag of the Republic of Macedonia, or the renaming of Skopje Airport
to "Alexander the Great Airport" meet strong criticism from the Greek side, much of the international media that report on the issue, and even from moderate political views in the Republic of Macedonia itself.
According to news reports there are plans for an "eight-story-high" statue of Alexander the Great on horseback to be built in the center of the city of Skopje. Greece has scornfully characterised the effort, with the foreign ministry commenting on the size of the statue as "inversely proportional to seriousness and historical truth". The project received criticism by the European Union, calling it "not helpful" as well as by Skopje architects and ethnic Macedonian academics and politicians commenting on the aesthetic outcome and the semantics of such a move.
Some Greek historians emphasise the late emergence of a "Macedonian" nation, often pointing to 1944 as the date of its "artificial" creation under Josip Broz Tito
, discounting earlier roots in the 19th and early 20th century.
The Greek view also stresses that the name Macedonia as a geographical term historically used to refer typically to the southern, Greek parts of the region (including the capital of the ancient kingdom, Pella
), and not or only marginally to the territory of today's Republic. They also note that the territory was not called Macedonia as a political entity until 1944.
Several hundred international and Greek classical scholars have lobbied for the historical concerns regarding the name dispute to be reflected in US policy.
During the Greek Civil War
, in 1947 the Greek Ministry of Press and Information published a book, Ἡ ἐναντίον τῆς Ἑλλάδος ἐπιβουλή (Designs on Greece), including documents and speeches on the ongoing Macedonian issue, many translations from Yugoslav officials. It reports Josip Broz Tito
using the term "Aegean Macedonia
" on 11 October 1945 in the build up to the Greek Civil War; the original document is archived in ‘GFM A/24581/G2/1945’. For Athens in 1947, the “new term, Aegean Macedonia”, (also “Pirin Macedonia”), was introduced by Yugoslavs. Contextually, this observation indicates this was part of the Yugoslav offensive against Greece, laying claim to Greek Macedonia, but Athens does not seem to take issue with the term itself. The 1945 date concurs with Bulgarian sources.
Tito's wartime representative to Macedonia, General Tempo (Svetozar Vukmanovic), is credited with promoting the usage of the new regional names of the Macedonian region for irredentist purposes. Concerns over territorial implications of the usage of the term "Macedonian" were expressed as early as 1944 by US diplomats.
Greece suspects that the Republic of Macedonia has territorial ambitions
in the northern Greek provinces of Macedonia
. This has been a Greek concern for decades; as far back as 1957, the Greek government expressed concern about reported Yugoslav ambitions to create an "independent" People's Republic of Macedonia with the Greek city of Thessaloniki
as its capital.
Loring M. Danforth
ascribes the goal of a "free, united, and independent Macedonia" including "liberated" Bulgarian and Greek territory to a fraction of extreme Macedonian nationalists, whereas more moderate ethnic Macedonians recognise the inviolability of the borders but regard the presence of ethnic Macedonians in the neighbouring countries as an issue of minority protection.
Greek analysts and politicians have expressed concerns that western observers tend to overlook or not to understand the severity of the perceived territorial threat and tend to misunderstand the conflict as a trivial issue over just a name.
The concerns are further reinforced by the fact that extremist ethnic Macedonian nationalists of the "United Macedonia
" movement have expressed irredentist claims to what they refer to as "Aegean Macedonia" (in Greece), "Pirin Macedonia" (in Bulgaria
), "Mala Prespa and Golo Brdo
" (in Albania
), and "Gora
and Prohor Pchinski" (in Serbia
).
Greek Macedonians, Bulgarians, Albanians and Serbs form the overwhelming majority of the population of each part of the region respectively.
Schoolbooks and official government publications in the Republic have shown the country as part of an unliberated whole.
In April 2008 Foreign Minister of Greece Dora Bakoyannis
complained about the prime minister of the Republic of Macedonia Nikola Gruevski
appearing in a photograph, by a map of "Greater Macedonia". The complaint was made inside an article published at Wall Street Journal, regarding the NATO ascension talks.
According to both the official Greek position and various public manifestations in Greece and the Greek diaspora
, the Greek Macedonians feel that their right to self-determination
is violated by what they regard as the monopolisation of their name by a neighbouring country.
The strong regional identity of the Macedonians was emphasised by the Prime Minister of Greece, Kostas Karamanlis, who in January 2007 during a meeting of the Council of Europe
in Strasbourg
declared that:
In Greece, the extreme position on the issue suggests that there must be "no Macedonia in the title" of a neighbouring country.
Professor Danforth reports:
More moderate positions suggest that a disambiguating element should be added to the name of the neighbouring state and its people (notably Slav, Vardar or New), so as to illustrate the distinction between not just the two, but all groups of self-identifying Macedonians.
The contemporary region of Macedonia
is a wider region in the Balkan peninsula that spans across several modern states, mainly Greece (Aegean Macedonia
), Bulgaria (Blagoevgrad province
), the Republic of Macedonia, and Albania
(around Lake Ohrid
). The definite borders of the region are vague, but most contemporary geographers agree on its general location. There are several ethnic groups in this region, mostly living within their respective states, all of which are technically "Macedonians" in the regional sense. The Republic itself, has a substantial minority (25.2%) of ethnic Albanians
who are "Macedonians" both in the regional sense, and as legal citizens of the Republic. However, in a Balkans where ethnicity rather than nationhood defines peoples' identity, Albanians are never referred to (or refer to themselves) as Macedonians.
The Greek position suggests that the monopolisation of the name by the Republic and its citizens creates semiological confusion, as it becomes increasingly difficult to disambiguate which "Macedonia", which "Macedonians" and what "Macedonian language" are referred to in each occasion.
According to a source Bulgarians
living in Blagoevgrad province
(Bulgarian Macedonia) are reported to not identify themselves with their regional term "Macedonians", so as not to be confused with the ethnic Macedonians. According to other sources the traditional use of the term "Macedonians" in Bulgaria as a regional designation continues.
Macedo-Romanians (Aromanians
) are often called "Machedoni" by Romanians, as opposed to the citizens of Macedonia, who are called "Macedoneni".
The Greek Macedonians demonstrate a strong regional identity and identify themselves as plain Macedonians, who live in plain Macedonia
, speaking a Macedonian dialect of modern Greek.
According to the government in Skopje, the preservation of the constitutional name both for domestic and international use is of utmost importance. The country asserts that it does not lay exclusive claim to the term Macedonia either in the geographic or the historic sense. Various demonstrations and protests in the Republic of Macedonia
and the ethnic Macedonian diaspora, were held to support their view that their right to self-determination is violated by what they regard as the rejection of the name from the international community. The Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences suggests:
Ethnic Macedonians state they are descendants of the local inhabitants of Macedonia which existed before the Slavic invasions, and the Slavic peoples who invaded the region in the 6th-8th century A.D., mixing both cultures and traditions.
by the Republic of Macedonia had intended to appeal to all ethnic groups in Macedonia, as an ancient symbol which preceded the ethnic division of the present, The argument of legitimacy also extends to the view that much of today's Greek Macedonia was only fully Hellenised by political and military means in modern times. Since the division of Macedonia in 1913, Greece has carried out a policy of Hellenisation of the local population, forcing name changes, religious affiliation, and writings of church, frescoes and graves to Greek
. During the Ioannis Metaxas
era, Macedonians were deported or tortured for speaking or claiming to be Macedonian. Slavic-speaking Macedonians argue that they have a more legitimate claim to the name Macedonia to many Greek Macedonians, who are descendents of Greek immigrants and refugees that were settled in Macedonia from regions such as Anatolia, Epirus and Thrace during the early twentieth century.
In the 6th and 7th centuries AD Slavic
-speaking populations came into northern Greece and the ethnic composition of the wider Macedonia region
, and Slavic languages have been spoken in the area alongside Greek in the region ever since. In parts of northern Greece, in the regions of Macedonia
(Μακεδονία) and Thrace
(Θράκη), Slavonic languages continue to be spoken by people with a wide range of self-identifications. The actual linguistic classification of these dialects is unclear, although most linguists will classify them as either Bulgarian
or Macedonian Slavic
taking into account numerous factors, including the resemblance and mutual intelligibility of each dialect to the standard languages (abstand), and the self-identification of the speakers themselves. As however the vast majority of these people don't have a non-Greek national identity, linguists will make their decisions based on abstand alone. The Slavic-speaking minority of northern Greece can be divided in to two main groups: Christians
and Muslims
. The latter has no reported connection to ethnic Macedonians.
The Christian portion of Greece's Slavic-speaking minority are commonly referred to as Slavophones (from the Greek Σλαβόφωνοι Slavophōnoi - lit. Slavic-speakers) or Dopii, which means "locals" in Greek. The vast majority of them espouse a Greek national identity and are bilingual in Greek. They live mostly in the Periphery of Western Macedonia
and belong to the Greek Orthodox Church
, which in conjunction with the millet
system of the Ottoman Empire
which occupied the region until 1913, may explain their self-identification as Greeks. In the 1951 census, 41,017 people claimed to speak the Slavic language. One unofficial estimate for 2000 puts their number at 1.8% of the Greek population, that is c.200,000.
This group has received some attention in recent years due to claims from the Republic of Macedonia
that these people form an ethnic Macedonian
minority in Greece. Some organisations and academics have stated that there is a minority within the Slavophone community in Greece which self-identifies as ethnic Macedonian.
There is a dispute over the size of this alleged minority, with some Greeks denying it outright, and most ethnic Macedonians inflating the numbers substantially. The Greek Helsinki Monitor reports that, "difficult and therefore risky it is to declare a Macedonian minority identity in such an extremely hostile if not aggressive environment in Greece". There are no official statistics to confirm or deny either claims. The Greek government has thus far refused on the basis that there is no significant such community and that the idea of minority status is not popular amongst the (Greek identifying) linguistic community of northern Greece as it would have the effect of them being marginalised.
Professor Danforth reports:
A political party promoting this line and claiming rights of what they describe as the "Macedonian minority in Greece" — the Rainbow
(Виножито) — was founded in September 1998; it received a minimal support of 2,955 votes in the region of Macedonia
in the latest elections (2004).
as used by the people and defined in the constitution of the Republic of Macedonia
is "Macedonian" (Macedonian
: Cyrillic: Mакедонски јазик - Latin
: Makedonski jazik). This is also the name used by international bodies, such as the United Nations
and the World Health Organisation. The name is also used by convention in the field of Slavic Studies.
However, for historical reasons, as well as due to the conflict with Greece, several other terms for the language remain in use. Some of the names use the family to which the language belongs to disambiguate it from the undoubtedly non-Slavic and entirely different ancient Macedonian language
, or from the homonymous dialect of modern Greek; sometimes the autonym "Makedonski" is used in English for the modern Slavic language, with "Macedonian" being reserved for the ancient language.
Affirmation of the separateness of Macedonian as a separate language is an issue of some importance for the ethnic Macedonian self-view. In opposition to this, Bulgarian and Greek critics sometimes continue to insist on treating Macedonian as merely a dialect of Bulgarian, pointing to its close structural affinity, its historically late emergence as a separate standard language, and the political motivation behind its promotion in the mid-20th century.
are currently debated. It is as yet undetermined whether it was a Greek dialect which was part of or closely related to the Doric
and/or Aeolic
dialects, a sibling language of ancient Greek
forming a Hellenic (i.e. Greco-Macedonian) supergroup, or an Indo-European
language which was a close cousin to Greek and also related to Thracian
and Phrygian
languages. The scientific community generally agrees that, although some sources are available (e.g. Hesychius'
lexicon, Pella curse tablet) there is no decisive evidence for supporting either hypothesis. Nevertheless, Attic Greek
, a form of the Greek language
, eventually supplanted it entirely in Macedonia from the 5th Century BC, and ancient Macedonian became extinct during the first few centuries AD. Attic Greek evolved into Koine Greek
and in turn into Byzantine
and modern Greek
.
Notice: Hyperlinks and emphasis in the quotations appearing in this article were not in the original source being quoted, but are merely used for disambiguation purposes.
Macedonia (terminology)
The name Macedonia is used in a number of competing or overlapping meanings to describe geographical, political and historical areas, languages and peoples in a part of south-eastern Europe. It has been a major source of political controversy since the early 20th century...
has been an ongoing issue in the bilateral relations between Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
since the latter became independent from former Yugoslavia in 1991. Greece opposes the use of the name without any qualification such as 'northern' of the post-1991 constitutional name of its northern neighbour, citing historical and territorial concerns resulting from the ambiguity between it and the adjacent Greek region of Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
. Greece also objects to the publication of maps showing an 'undivided' Macedonia which shows both countries as a single one, interpreting this as an attempt to claim some of their territory. Greece also objects to the ambiguous use of the term Macedonian for the neighbouring country's main ethnic group
Macedonians (ethnic group)
The Macedonians also referred to as Macedonian Slavs: "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness...
and language
Macedonian language naming dispute
The name of the Macedonian language, as used by the people and defined in the constitution of the Republic of Macedonia, is "Macedonian" . This is also the name used by international bodies, such as the United Nations and the World Health Organisation...
. The dispute has escalated to the highest level of international mediation, involving numerous attempts to achieve a resolution, notably by the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
.
The provisional reference the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) is still currently used in relations involving states which do not recognise the constitutional name, Republic of Macedonia. Nevertheless, all United Nations member-states, and the UN as a whole, have agreed to accept any final agreement resulting from negotiations between the two countries. The ongoing dispute has not prevented the two countries from enjoying close trade links and investment levels (especially from Greece), but it has generated a great deal of political and academic debate on both sides.
negotiations aimed at resolving the dispute are ongoing.
Background
Controversy and conflict
The territory in present-day Republic of Macedonia was in very early times approximately equivalent to the country called Paeonia. After the conquest of Greece by the Romans in 168 B.C. a large administrative district was created in northern Greece which added Paeonia to other territories outside the original Macedonia, and used the name 'Macedonia' to describe the whole of this new province. This situation lasted, with some modifications, until the eastern Roman Empire was absorbed into the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century. Macedonia then became part of RumeliaRumelia
Rumelia was an historical region comprising the territories of the Ottoman Empire in Europe...
, controlled by the Ottoman Empire up to 1913. In 1893 a revolutionary movement against the Ottoman rule began, resulting in the Ilinden Uprising on 2 August 1903 (St. Elias's Day). The failure of the Ilinden Uprising caused a change in the strategy of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) from revolutionary to institutional. It split into two wings (one fighting for autonomous Macedonia inside the Ottoman Empire or inside a Balkan Federation led by Yane Sandanski
Yane Sandanski
Yane Ivanov Sandanski or Jane Ivanov Sandanski, was a revolutionary, one of the leaders of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization in the Serres region and head of the extreme leftist wing of the organization...
, and a second Supremist wing supporting the inclusion of Macedonia in Bulgaria). After the Ilinden Uprising the revolutionary movement ceased and opened a space for frequent insurgencies of Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian squads into Ottoman Europe, including the ill-defined territory of the wider Macedonian region. The Bulgarian squads, supported by the local population, often engaged the Turkish army, contributing to the eventual collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The state of conflict in 1912 resulted in the First Balkan War
First Balkan War
The First Balkan War, which lasted from October 1912 to May 1913, pitted the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The combined armies of the Balkan states overcame the numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success...
, and the Ottomans lost most of their European conquests.
In the next year the Second Balkan War
Second Balkan War
The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 29 June 1913. Bulgaria had a prewar agreement about the division of region of Macedonia...
began and the aftermath was division in 1913 of most of Ottoman Europe into four parts, between Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania. The present-day Republic of Macedonia was included in Serbia. In 1914 the First World War started and Bulgaria occupied eastern Macedonia and Vardar Macedonia
Vardar Macedonia
Vardar Macedonia is an area in the north of the Macedonia . The borders of the area are those of the Republic of Macedonia. It covers an area of...
, helped Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
in defeating the Serbs and creating a front
Macedonian front (World War I)
The Macedonian Front resulted from an attempt by the Allied Powers to aid Serbia, in the autumn of 1915, against the combined attack of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. The expedition came too late and in insufficient force to prevent the fall of Serbia, and was complicated by the internal...
around the Greek part of Macedonia. Thus the present-day Republic of Macedonia was part of Bulgaria between 1915-1918. After Bulgaria signed a capitulation, the borders returned with small adjustments to the situation of 1913, and the present-day Republic of Macedonia became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. This period saw the creation of a separate Macedonian state and the development of nation building by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
League of Communists of Yugoslavia
League of Communists of Yugoslavia , before 1952 the Communist Party of Yugoslavia League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian: Savez komunista Jugoslavije/Савез комуниста Југославије, Slovene: Zveza komunistov Jugoslavije, Macedonian: Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na...
on the third congress in Vienna in 1926 and in 1936 Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
took over the leadership of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes changed its name in 1929 to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the present-day Republic of Macedonia was included as South Serbia in a province named Vardar Banovina
Vardar Banovina
The Vardar Banovina or Vardar Banate or Vardarska Banovina was a province of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1941. It was located in the southernmost part of the country, encompassing the whole of today's Republic of Macedonia, southern parts of Central Serbia and southeastern parts of...
. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ceased to exist in 1941 as a consequence of the Second World War. Bulgaria as part of the Axis powers advanced into the territory of the Republic of Macedonia and the Greek province of Macedonia. The territory of the Republic of Macedonia was included into Bulgaria and Italian Albania.
The Yugoslav People's Liberation War began officially in 1941 in the territory of the Republic of Macedonia. On the 2nd of August in 1944 (St. Elias's Day), honouring the fighters of the Ilinden Uprising, the assembly of the people constituted the Macedonian state as a federal state within the framework of the future Yugoslav federation. In 1946 the People's Republic of Macedonia
Socialist Republic of Macedonia
The Socialist Republic of Macedonia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia...
was established as federal part of the newly proclaimed Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
. The issue of the republic's name immediately sparked controversy with Greece over concerns that it presaged a territorial claim on the Greek coastal region of Macedonia (see Territorial concerns below). The US Roosevelt administration expressed the same concern through Edward Stettinius in 1944. The Greek press and Greek government of Andreas Papandreou
Andreas Papandreou
Andreas G. Papandreou ; 5 February 1919 – 23 June 1996) was a Greek economist, a socialist politician and a dominant figure in Greek politics. The son of Georgios Papandreou, Andreas was a Harvard-trained academic...
continued to express the above concerns confronting the views of Yugoslavia during the 1980s and until the Revolutions of 1989
Revolutions of 1989
The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...
.
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
, but dropped the "Socialist" from its name a few months before declaring independence from Yugoslavia in September 1991.
The newly independent republic's accession to the United Nations and recognition by the European Community (EC) was delayed by strong Greek opposition. Although the Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on the former Yugoslavia
Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on the former Yugoslavia
The Arbitration Commission of the Conference on Yugoslavia was a commission set up by the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community on 27 August 1991 to provide the Conference on Yugoslavia with legal advice...
declared that the Republic of Macedonia met the conditions set by the EC for international recognition, Greece opposed the international community recognising the Republic due to a number of objections concerning the country's name, flag and constitution. In an effort to block the European Community from recognising the Republic, the Greek government persuaded the EC to adopt a common declaration establishing conditions for recognition which included a ban on "territorial claims towards a neighbouring Community state, hostile propaganda and the use of a denomination that implies territorial claims".
In Greece, about one million Greek Macedonians
Macedonians (Greeks)
Macedonians are a regional population group of ethnic Greeks, inhabiting or originating from the region of Macedonia, in northern Greece. Today, most live in or around the regional capital city of Thessaloniki. Many have spread across the whole of Greece and in the diaspora.-Preface:Greek...
participated in the 1992 "Rally for Macedonia" (Greek: Συλλαλητήριο για τη Μακεδονία), a very large demonstration that took place in the streets of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
in 1992. The point of the rally was to object to "Macedonia" being a part of the name of then newly established Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
. In a following major rally in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, held in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
and organised by the Macedonians
Macedonians (Greeks)
Macedonians are a regional population group of ethnic Greeks, inhabiting or originating from the region of Macedonia, in northern Greece. Today, most live in or around the regional capital city of Thessaloniki. Many have spread across the whole of Greece and in the diaspora.-Preface:Greek...
of Greek diaspora
Greek diaspora
The Greek diaspora, also known as Hellenic Diaspora or Diaspora of Hellenism, is a term used to refer to the communities of Greek people living outside the traditional Greek homelands, but more commonly in southeast Europe and Asia Minor...
that has a strong presence there, about 100,000 people protested. The major slogan of these rallies was "Macedonia is Greek" (Greek: H Μακεδονία είναι ελληνική).
Greece's major political parties agreed on 13 April 1992 that the word "Macedonia" could not be accepted in any way in the new republic's name. This became the cornerstone of the Greek position on the issue. The Greek diaspora
Greek diaspora
The Greek diaspora, also known as Hellenic Diaspora or Diaspora of Hellenism, is a term used to refer to the communities of Greek people living outside the traditional Greek homelands, but more commonly in southeast Europe and Asia Minor...
was also mobilised in the naming controversy. A Greek-American group, Americans for the Just Resolution of the Macedonian Issue, placed a full-page advertisement in the 26 April and 10 May 1992 editions of the New York Times, urging President George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
"not to discount the concerns of the Greek people" by recognising the "Republic of Skopje" as Macedonia. Greek-Canadians also mounted a similar campaign. The EC subsequently issued a declaration expressing a willingness "to recognise that republic within its existing borders... under a name which does not include the term Macedonia."
Greek objections likewise held up the wider international recognition of the Republic of Macedonia. Although the Republic applied for membership of the United Nations on 30 July 1992, its application languished in a diplomatic limbo for nearly a year. A few states—Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
and Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
—recognised the republic under its constitutional name before its admission to the UN. Most, however, waited to see what the United Nations would do. The delay had a serious effect on the Republic, as it led to a worsening of its already precarious economic and political conditions. With war raging in nearby Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
and Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, the need to ensure the country's stability became an urgent priority for the international community. The deteriorating security situation led to the UN's first-ever preventative peacekeeping deployment in December 1992, when units of the United Nations Protection Force
United Nations Protection Force
The United Nations Protection Force ', was the first United Nations peacekeeping force in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Yugoslav wars. It existed between the beginning of UN involvement in February 1992, and its restructuring into other forces in March 1995...
were deployed to monitor possible border violations from Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
.
Compromise solutions
During 1992, the International Monetary FundInternational Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...
, World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
and the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia all adopted the appellation "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" to refer to the Republic in their discussions and dealings with it. The same terminology was proposed in January 1993 by France, Spain and the United Kingdom, the three EC members of the United Nations Security Council
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
, to enable the Republic to join the United Nations. The proposal was circulated on 22 January 1993 by the United Nations Secretary General. However, it was initially rejected by both sides in the dispute. It was immediately opposed by the Greek Foreign Minister, Michael Papacostaninou. In a letter to the Secretary General dated 25 January 1993, he argued that admitting the republic "prior to meeting the necessary prerequisites, and in particular abandoning the use of the denomination 'Republic of Macedonia', would perpetuate and increase friction and tension and would not be conducive to peace and stability in an already troubled region."
The president of the Republic of Macedonia, Kiro Gligorov
Kiro Gligorov
Kiro Gligorov , born May 3, 1917) was the first democratically elected President of the Republic of Macedonia. His son Vladimir Gligorov is the refounder of the Serbian Democratic Party.- Biography :...
, also opposed the proposed formula. In a letter of 24 March 1993, he informed the President of the United Nations Security Council that "the Republic of Macedonia will in no circumstances be prepared to accept 'the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' as the name of the country." He declared that "we refuse to be associated in any way with the present connotation of the term 'Yugoslavia' ". The issue of possible Serbian territorial ambitions had been a long-running concern in the Republic of Macedonia, which some Serbian nationalists still called "South Serbia" after its pre-World War II name. The government in the Republic of Macedonia was consequently nervous of any naming formula which might be seen to endorse a possible Serbian territorial claim.
Both sides came under intense diplomatic pressure to compromise. The support that Greece had received initially from its allies and partners in NATO and the European Community had begun to wane due to a combination of factors that included irritation in some quarters at Greece's hard line on the issue and a belief that Greece had flouted sanctions against Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The intra-Community tensions were publicly exposed on 20 January 1993 by the Danish foreign minister, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen
Uffe Ellemann-Jensen
Uffe Ellemann-Jensen was Minister for Foreign Affairs of Denmark in the Conservative led Poul Schlüter Administration 1982–1993. He was leader of the Danish Liberal Party, Venstre 1984–1998 and President of the European Liberals 1995–2000...
, who attracted the ire of Greek members of the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
when he described the Greek position as "ridiculous" and expressed the hope that "the Security Council will very quickly recognise Macedonia and that many of the member states of the Community will support this."
The Greek Prime Minister, Constantine Mitsotakis
Constantine Mitsotakis
Constantine Mitsotakis , a Greek politician, was born in Chania, Crete. He came from a political family: his father and grandfathers were members of parliament, and the great liberal leader Eleftherios Venizelos was his uncle...
, took a much more moderate line on the issue than many of his colleagues in the governing New Democracy
New Democracy (Greece)
New Democracy is the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece. It was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic...
party. Despite opposition from hardliners, he endorsed the proposal in March 1993. The acceptance of the formula by Athens also led to the reluctant acquiescence of the government in Skopje, though it too was divided between moderates and hardliners on the issue.
On 7 April 1993, the UN Security Council endorsed the admission of the republic in United Nations Security Council Resolution 817
United Nations Security Council Resolution 817
United Nations Security Council Resolution 817, adopted unanimously on April 7, 1993, after examining the application of the Republic of Macedonia for membership in the United Nations, the Council recommended to the General Assembly that Macedonia be admitted....
. It recommended to the United Nations General Assembly
United Nations General Assembly
For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...
"that the State whose application is contained in document S/25147 be admitted to membership in the United Nations, this State being provisionally referred to for all purposes within the United Nations as 'the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' pending settlement of the difference that has arisen over the name of the State." The recommendation was agreed by the General Assembly, which passed Resolution 225 on the following day, 8 April, using virtually the same language as the Security Council. The Republic of Macedonia thus became the 181st member of the United Nations.
The compromise solution, as set out in the two resolutions, was very carefully worded in an effort to meet the objections and concerns of both sides. The wording of the resolutions rested on four key principles:
- The appellation "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" was purely a provisional term to be used only until the dispute was resolved.
- The term was a reference, not a name; as a neutral party in the dispute, the United Nations had not sought to determine the name of the state. The President of the Security Council subsequently issued a statement declaring on behalf of the Council that the term "merely reflected the historic fact that it had been in the past a republic of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia." The purpose of the term was also emphasised by the fact that the expression begins with the uncapitalised words "the former Yugoslav", acting as a descriptive term, rather than "the Former Yugoslav", which would act as a proper nounProper nounA proper noun or proper name is a noun representing a unique entity , as distinguished from a common noun, which represents a class of entities —for example, city, planet, person or corporation)...
. By also being a reference rather than a name, it met Greek concerns that the term "Macedonia" should not be used in the republic's internationally recognised name. - The use of the term was purely "for all purposes within the United Nations"; it was not being mandated for any other party.
- The term did not imply that the Republic of Macedonia had any connection with the existing Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as opposed to the historical and now-defunct Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
One additional concern that had to be taken care of was the seating of the Republic of Macedonia in the General Assembly. Greece rejected seating the Republic's representative under M [as in "Macedonia (former Yugoslav Republic of)"], and the Republic rejected sitting under F (as in "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", which turned the reference into a proper noun rather than a description). Instead, it was seated under T as "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" and placed next to Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
.
In due course, the same convention was adopted by many other international organisations and states but they did so independently, not as the result of being instructed by the UN. For its part, Greece did not adopt the UN terminology at this stage and did not recognise the Republic under any name. The rest of the international community did not immediately recognise the Republic, but this did eventually happen at the end of 1993 and start of 1994. The People's Republic of China was the first major power to act, recognising the Republic under its constitutional name on 13 October 1993. On 16 December 1993, two weeks before Greece was due to take up the European Community presidency, six key EC countries—Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom—recognised the Republic under its UN designation. Other EC countries followed suit in quick succession and by the end of December, all EC member states except Greece had recognised the Republic. Japan, Russia and the United States followed suit on 21 December 1993, 3 February 1994, and 9 February 1994 respectively.
Continuing dispute
Despite the apparent success of the compromise agreement, it led to an upsurge in nationalist agitation in both countries. Anti-Western and anti-American feelings came to the fore in Greece, in response to a perception that Greece's partners in the EC and NATO had betrayed it. The government of Constantine Mitsotakis was highly vulnerable; it had a majority of only a couple of seats and was under considerable pressure from ultra-nationalists. After the country's admission to the UN, the hardline former foreign minister Antonis SamarasAntonis Samaras
Antonis Samaras is a Greek economist and politician who has been leader of New Democracy, Greece's major conservative party and main opposition party, since 2009. A Member of Parliament for Messenia, he was Minister of Finance in 1989, then Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1989 to 1990 and again...
broke away from the governing New Democracy (ND) party along with three like-minded deputies who resented what they saw as the prime minister's unacceptable weakness on the Macedonian issue. This defection deprived ND of its slim parliamentary majority and ultimately caused the fall of the government, which suffered a landslide defeat in the general election of October 1993. It was replaced by the PASOK
Panhellenic Socialist Movement
The Panhellenic Socialist Movement , known mostly by its acronym PASOK , is one of the two major political parties in Greece. Founded on 3 September 1974 by Andreas Papandreou, in 1981 PASOK became Greece's first social democratic party to win a majority in parliament.The party is a socialist party...
party under Andreas Papandreou
Andreas Papandreou
Andreas G. Papandreou ; 5 February 1919 – 23 June 1996) was a Greek economist, a socialist politician and a dominant figure in Greek politics. The son of Georgios Papandreou, Andreas was a Harvard-trained academic...
, who introduced an even more hardline policy on Macedonia and withdrew from the UN-sponsored negotiations on the naming issue in late October.
The government of the Republic of Macedonia also faced domestic opposition for its part in the agreement. Protest rallies against the UN's temporary reference were held in the cities of Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
, Kočani
Kocani
Kočani is a town away from Skopje, situated in the Eastern part of the Republic of Macedonia, with population of 28 330. The town of Kočani is the seat of Kočani Municipality.-Geography and population:...
and Resen. The parliament only accepted the agreement by a narrow margin, with 30 deputies voting in favour, 28 voting against and 13 abstaining. The nationalist opposition VMRO-DPMNE party called a vote of no confidence over the naming issue, but the government survived with 62 deputies voting in its favour.
The naming dispute has not been confined to the Balkans, as immigrant communities from both countries have actively defended the positions of their respective homelands around the world, organising large protest rallies in major European, North American and Australian cities. After Australia recognised the "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" in early 1994, tensions between the two communities reached a climax, with churches and properties hit by a series of tit-for-tat bomb and arson attacks in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
.
Interim accord
Vergina Sun
The Vergina Sun — also known as the Star of Vergina, Macedonian star, or Argead Star — is the name given to a symbol of a stylised star or sun with sixteen rays. It was unearthed in 1977 during excavations in Vergina, in the northern Greek region of Macedonia, by archaeologist Manolis Andronikos...
from its flag and allegedly irredentist
Irredentism
Irredentism is any position advocating annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, actual or alleged. Some of these movements are also called pan-nationalist movements. It is a feature of identity politics and cultural...
clauses from its constitution, and both countries committed to continuing negotiations on the naming issue under UN auspices. For its part, Greece agreed that it would not object to any application by the Republic so long as it used only the appellation set out in "paragraph 2 of the United Nations Security Council resolution 817" (i.e. "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"). This opened the door for the Republic to join a variety of international organisations and initiatives, including the Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
, OSCE and Partnership for Peace
Partnership for Peace
Partnership for Peace is a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation program aimed at creating trust between NATO and other states in Europe and the former Soviet Union; 22 States are members...
.
The accord was not a conventional perpetual treaty, as it can be superseded or revoked, but its provisions are legally binding in terms of international law. Most unusually, it did not use the names of either party. Greece, "the Party of the First Part", recognised the Republic of Macedonia under the term "the Party of the Second Part". The accord did not specifically identify either party by name (thus avoiding the awkwardness of Greece having to use the term "Macedonia" in reference to its northern neighbour). Instead, it identified the two parties elliptically by describing the Party of the First Part as having Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
as its capital and the Party of the Second Part having its capital at Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
. Subsequent declarations have continued this practice of referring to the parties without naming them.
Secretary Cyrus Vance
Cyrus Vance
Cyrus Roberts Vance was an American lawyer and United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980...
was the witness of Interim Accord as Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Stalemate
The naming issue has not yet been resolved, but it has effectively reached a stalemate. Various names had been proposed over the years, for instance "New Macedonia", "Upper Macedonia", "Slavo-Macedonia", "Nova Makedonija", "Macedonia (Skopje)" and so on. However, these had invariably fallen foul of the initial Greek position that no permanent formula incorporating the term "Macedonia" is acceptable. Athens had counter-proposed the names "Vardar Republic" or "Republic of Skopje", but the government and opposition parties in Skopje had consistently rejected any solution that eliminates the term "Macedonia" from the country's name. Following these developments, Greece has gradually revised its position and demonstrates its acceptance of a composite appellation, with a geographical qualifier, erga omnesErga omnes
In legal terminology, erga omnes rights or obligations are owed toward all. For instance a property right is an erga omnes entitlement, and therefore enforceable against anybody infringing that right...
(i.e. the incorporation of the term "Macedonia" in the name, but with the use of a disambiguating name specification, for international and intergovernmental use). However, a compromise has not been achieved.
The inhabitants of the Republic of Macedonia are overwhelmingly opposed to changing the country's name. A June 2007 opinion poll found that 77 per cent of the population were against a change in the country's constitutional name, and 72 per cent supported the Republic's accession to NATO only if it was admitted under its constitutional name. Only 8 per cent supported accession under the reference "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia".
A number of states recognise the Republic of Macedonia by its constitutional name. A few had recognised it by this name from the start, while most others had switched from recognising it under its UN reference. By September 2007, 118 countries (61% of all UN member states) had recognised the Republic of Macedonia under its constitutional name. Some observers had suggested that the gradual revision of the Greek position means that "the question appears destined to die" in due course. On the other hand, attempts by the Republic to persuade international organisations to drop the provisional reference have met with limited success. A recent example was the rejection by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe , which held its first session in Strasbourg on 10 August 1949, can be considered the oldest international parliamentary assembly with a pluralistic composition of democratically elected members of parliament established on the basis of an...
of a draft proposal to replace the provisional reference with the constitutional name in Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
documents.
The compromise reference is always used in relations when states not recognising the constitutional name are present. This is because the UN refers to the country only as "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", although all UN member-states (and the UN itself) have agreed to accept any final agreement resulting from negotiations between the two countries. Moscow's ambassador to Athens, Andrei Vdovin, stated that Russia will support whichever solution stems from the UN compromise talks, while hinting that "it is some other countries that seem to have a problem in doing so".
Most Greeks reject the use of the word "Macedonia" to describe the Republic of Macedonia, instead calling it "ΠΓΔΜ" (Πρώην Γιουγκοσλαβική Δημοκρατία της Μακεδονίας), the Greek translation of FYROM, or Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
and its inhabitants "Slavomacedonians" or Skopians (Greek: Σκοπιανοί), after the country's capital. The latter metonymic name is not used by non-Greeks, and many inhabitants of the Republic regard it as insulting. Greek official sources sometimes also use the term "Slavomacedonian" to refer to the Republic's inhabitants; the US State Department has used the term side by side with "Macedonian", albeit having them both in quotation marks. The name "Macedonian Slavs" (Македонски Словени) is another term used to refer to the ethnic Macedonians. A number of news agencies have used it (although the BBC recently discontinued its use on the grounds that people had alleged it was offensive), and it is used by the Encarta
Encarta
Microsoft Encarta was a digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft Corporation from 1993 to 2009. , the complete English version, Encarta Premium, consisted of more than 62,000 articles, numerous photos and illustrations, music clips, videos, interactive contents, timelines, maps and...
Encyclopaedia. The name has been occasionally used in early ethnic Macedonian literary sources as in Krste Misirkov
Krste Misirkov
Krste Petkov Misirkov was a philologist, slavist, historian, ethnographer, publicist author of the first book and scientific magazine in Macedonian, where he for the first time outlined the principles of the literary Macedonian language...
's work On Macedonian Matters (Za Makedonckite Raboti) in 1903.
Although the two countries continue to argue over the name, in practice they deal pragmatically with each other. Economic relations and cooperation have resumed to such an extent that Greece is now considered one of the Republic's most important foreign economic partners and investors.
Recent proposals and the "double name formula"
In 2005, Matthew NimetzMatthew Nimetz
Matthew Nimetz is an American diplomat.He is the United Nations Special Representative for the naming dispute between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia....
, UN Special Representative, suggested using "Republika Makedonija-Skopje" [sic] for official purposes. Greece did not accept the proposal outright, but characterised it as "a basis for constructive negotiations". Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski
Vlado Buckovski
Vlado Bučkovski Vlado Bučkovski Vlado Bučkovski (born December 2, 1962 in Skopje Social Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (now Republic of Macedonia) is a former prime minister of the Republic of Macedonia, elected by parliament on December 15, 2004. He was previously the defense minister of...
rejected the proposal and counterproposed a "double name formula" where the international community uses "Republic of Macedonia" and Greece uses "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia".
Nimetz was reported to have made a new proposal in October 2005; that the name "Republika Makedonija" should be used by those countries that have recognised the country under that name and that Greece should use the formula "Republika Makedonija – Skopje", while the international institutions and organisations should use the name "Republika Makedonia" in Latin alphabet transcription. Although the government of the Republic of Macedonia accepted the proposal as a good basis for solving the dispute, Greece rejected the proposal as unacceptable.
In December 2006, the government of the Republic announced the intent to rename Skopje Airport
Skopje Airport
Skopje Airport , or Skopje "Alexander the Great" Airport is the larger and busier of the two international airports in the Republic of Macedonia...
"Petrovec" to "Aleksandar Veliki" (Alexander the Great). Matthew Nimetz was invited to Athens in January 2007, where he commented that the efforts to mediate in the issue over the name were "affected and not in a positive way".
NATO and EU accession talks
The Republic of Macedonia's aspirations to join the European Union and NATO under its constitutional name have caused controversy in recent years. Under the Interim Accord of September 1995, Greece agreed not to obstruct the Republic's applications for membership in international bodies as long as it did so under its provisional UN appellation. Leading Greek officials had repeatedly stated that Athens would vetoVeto
A veto, Latin for "I forbid", is the power of an officer of the state to unilaterally stop an official action, especially enactment of a piece of legislation...
the country's accession in the absence of a resolution to the dispute. The Greek foreign minister
Minister for Foreign Affairs (Greece)
The Minister for Foreign Affairs is the senior minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece, established on 3 April 1833. The current Minister for Foreign Affairs, since 11 November 2011 is the former European Commissioner Stavros Dimas...
, Dora Bakoyannis
Dora Bakoyannis
Dora Bakoyannis , born Theodora Mitsotaki , is a Greek politician. From 2006 to 2009 she was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, the highest position ever held by a woman in the Cabinet of Greece; she was also Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in...
, stated that "...the Hellenic Parliament
Hellenic Parliament
The Hellenic Parliament , also the Parliament of the Hellenes, is the Parliament of Greece, located in the Parliament House , overlooking Syntagma Square in Athens, Greece....
, under any composition, will not ratify the accession of the neighbouring country to the EU and NATO if the name issue is not resolved beforehand."
The Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis had initially denied ever committing himself unequivocally to exercising Greece's right of veto, stating instead that he would only block the neighbouring country's application for EU and NATO membership if it sought to be admitted as the "Republic of Macedonia", but on 19 October 2007, he stated that without a mutually acceptable solution to the name issue, the country could not join either NATO or the EU.
Negotiations between Athens and Skopje were resumed on the 1 November 2007, continued on 1 December of the same year, and a bilateral meeting was held in January 2008. On 19 February 2008 in Athens, the delegations of the two countries met under the auspices of the UN mediator, Matthew Nimetz. They were presented with a new framework, which they both accepted as a basis for further negotiations. The new framework was intended to be secret so that negotiations could take place, but was leaked early in the press. The full text in Greek was published initially by To Vima
To Vima
To Vima is a Greek daily newspaper first published in 1922 by Dimitris Lambrakis, the father of Christos Lambrakis. It is owned by Lambrakis Press Group, a group which also publishes the newspaper Ta Nea, amongst others in its fold of publications...
and circulated speedily in all major media. It contained 8 points, and the general idea was a "composite name solution" for all international purposes. It also contained five proposed names:
- "Constitutional Republic of Macedonia"
- "Democratic Republic of Macedonia"
- "Independent Republic of Macedonia"
- "New Republic of Macedonia"
- "Republic of Upper Macedonia"
On 27 February 2008, a rally was held in Skopje called by several organisations in support of the name "Republic of Macedonia". Greek nationalist party Popular Orthodox Rally
Popular Orthodox Rally
The Popular Orthodox Rally or The People's Orthodox Rally , often abbreviated to ΛΑ.Ο.Σ as a pun on the Greek word for people, is a Greek party. According to its political program LA.O.S...
also organised a similar rally in Thessaloniki on 5 March, in support of the name "Macedonia" being used only by Greece. The Greek church and both major Greek parties strongly discouraged such manifestations "during this sensitive time of negotiation".
On 2 March 2008 in New York, Matthew Nimetz announced that the talks had failed, that there was a "gap" in the positions of the two countries, and that there would not be any progress, unless there were some sort of compromise, which he characterised as "valuable" for both sides. After Greek PM Karamanlis's warnings that "no solution equals no invitation", the Greek media took it for granted that Greece would veto
Veto
A veto, Latin for "I forbid", is the power of an officer of the state to unilaterally stop an official action, especially enactment of a piece of legislation...
the coming NATO accession talks for the country, in the Foreign Ministers' summit on 6 March 2008 in Brussels.
Meanwhile, in a newer poll in Greece, the "composite name that includes the name Macedonia for the country" seemed, for the first time, to be marginally more popular than the previous more hard-lined stance of "no Macedonia in the title" (43% vs 42%). In the same poll, 84% of the respondents were pro-veto in the country's NATO accession talks, if the issue had not been resolved by then. All Greek political parties except the small nationalist party Popular Orthodox Rally support the "composite name for all uses" solution, and are vehemently opposed to any "double name" formula which is proposed by the republic. This shift in the official and public position was described by the PM of Greece as "the maximum recoil possible".
Following his visit to Athens in an attempt to persuade the Greek government not to proceed to a veto, the NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
Jakob Gijsbert "Jaap" de Hoop Scheffer is a retired Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal . He served as the 11th Secretary General of NATO from January 5, 2004 until August 1, 2009....
implied that the onus to compromise rested on the Republic of Macedonia. In the same spirit, the EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn
Olli Rehn
Olli Ilmari Rehn is a Finnish politician, currently serving as European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs. He had previously served as Commissioner for Enlargement...
, expressed his fear that "it might have negative consequences on FYROM’s EU bid
Accession of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the European Union
The Republic of Macedonia has been a candidate for accession to the European Union since 2005. It submitted its membership application in 2004, thirteen years after its independence from former Yugoslavia...
, although it is a bilateral question, Greece — as any other EU member — has the right to veto". On 5 March 2008, Nimetz visited Skopje to try to find common ground on his proposal, but announced that "the gap remains".
As earlier anticipated, on 6 March 2008, in the NATO Foreign Minister's summit in Brussels, Greek minister Dora Bakoyannis
Dora Bakoyannis
Dora Bakoyannis , born Theodora Mitsotaki , is a Greek politician. From 2006 to 2009 she was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, the highest position ever held by a woman in the Cabinet of Greece; she was also Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in...
announced that "as regards the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, ... , unfortunately, the policy followed by our neighbouring country in its relations with Greece, on the one side with intransigence and on the other with a logic of nationalist and irredentist actions tightly connected with the naming issue, does not allow us to maintain a positive stance, as we did for Croatia and Albania. ... As long as there is no such solution, Greece will remain an insuperable obstacle to the European and Euro-Atlantic ambition of FYROM".
On 7 March 2008, the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
The Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs is a position within the American Department of State that leads the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs charged with implementing American foreign policy in Europe and Eurasia, and with advising the Under Secretary for...
, Daniel Fried
Daniel Fried
Daniel Fried is a senior career diplomat of the United States who carries the rank of Ambassador. He is presently serving as a Special Envoy to facilitate the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp located in Cuba. Previously, he was the top U.S. diplomat in Europe, and prior to that he was...
, made an unscheduled visit to Skopje, with the message that the two sides must cooperate with Matthew Nimetz to find a mutually acceptable solution for the naming dispute.
Democratic Party of Albanians
The Democratic Party of Albanians or DPA is a political party of the ethnic Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia. The DPA is a merger of the Party for Democratic Prosperity of Albanians and the People's Democratic Party which took place in June 1997...
(DPA) and subsequently the negotiating power of PM Nikola Gruevski
Nikola Gruevski
Nikola Gruevski has been Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia since 27 August 2006. He has led VMRO-DPMNE since May 2003. He was Minister of Finance in the VMRO-DPMNE government led by Ljubčo Georgievski until September 2002.- Personal life :...
with regards to the naming dispute, after the leader of DPA Menduh Thaçi accused the government of not complying with its requests about the rights of Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia
Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia
Albanians are the largest ethnic minority in the Republic of Macedonia. Of the 2,022,547 citizens of Macedonia, 509,083, or 25%, are Albanian according to the latest national census in 2002. The Albanian minority lives mostly in the north-western part of the country...
. Greek media considered the option that the crisis might be a diplomatic way of increasing the pressure on the Greek side. Following a call for cooperation by the president Branko Crvenkovski
Branko Crvenkovski
Branko Crvenkovski leads the Republic of Macedonia's largest opposition party, the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia. He was Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2002 to 2004, then President of the Republic of Macedonia from 2004 to 2009.Crvenkovski was...
, the other four major parties agreed to support Gruevski's government until NATO's convention in Bucharest
2008 Bucharest summit
The 2008 Bucharest Summit or the 20th NATO Summit was a NATO summit organized in Bucharest, Romania on 2 – 4 April 2008. Among other business, Croatia and Albania were invited to join the alliance. Republic of Macedonia was not invited due to its ongoing naming dispute with Greece...
on 4 April 2008.
The possibility of a failure of the ascension talks is met with unease by the ethnic Albanian
Albanians
Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...
part of the population that places more importance on EU and NATO membership than on the Macedonia name issue.
Following the declaration of Athens for a veto, the press in Skopje reported increased intervention from the United States to solve the dispute, through Victoria Nuland
Victoria Nuland
Victoria Nuland is the spokesperson for the United States Department of State.-Career:In Summer 2011, Nuland became the State Department Spokesperson...
, the US NATO ambassador. Antonio Milošoski announced that "Nimetz's proposal remains unchanged". The daily newspaper Dnevnik
Dnevnik (Skopje)
Dnevnik is a daily newspaper in the Republic of Macedonia. The founders of Dnevnik were Mile Jovanovski, Branislav Gjeroski and Aleksandar Damovski. It is published every day except Sunday. The first issue of Dnevnik was published on March 20, 1996...
reported that diplomatic sources claimed that this would be the last attempt from the American leadership to help in finding a solution, and that the target of this effort would be for the country to retreat from its position in regard to a "double name formula" and for Greece to accept something along these lines. It continued by saying that the US would exercise pressure on both sides to find a solution before NATO's summit, so that the alliance could be expanded. Olli Rehn
Olli Rehn
Olli Ilmari Rehn is a Finnish politician, currently serving as European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs. He had previously served as Commissioner for Enlargement...
urged "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to show the correct political will in seizing the opportunity to find an acceptable solution for both parts".
A new meeting between Nimetz and the two parties was arranged on 17 March 2008 in Vienna, in the office of the former US special envoy to Kosovo and ex-president of Finland
President of Finland
The President of the Republic of Finland is the nation's head of state. Under the Finnish constitution, executive power is vested in the President and the government, with the President possessing extensive powers. The President is elected directly by the people of Finland for a term of six years....
, Martti Ahtisaari
Martti Ahtisaari
Martti Oiva Kalevi Ahtisaari is a Finnish politician, the tenth President of Finland , Nobel Peace Prize laureate and United Nations diplomat and mediator, noted for his international peace work....
. Nimetz noted that he did not present any new proposals, thanked the United States with whom he said he was in contact, and urged more countries to help in solving the dispute. He also announced that he was more optimistic after this meeting, and that he focused only on the solutions that could be applied by NATO's summit in April.
According to the press in the Republic of Macedonia Nimetz now limited his proposal to three names of the five that were proposed in his original framework:
- "Republic of Upper Macedonia"
- "New Republic of Macedonia" or "Republic of New Macedonia"
- "Republic of Macedonia-Skopje"
Of the three, Greek media have reported that the only serious contender is "New Macedonia", being the solution favoured throughout the current round of negotiations by Washington, which regards it as the "most neutral" option. According to some reports, all three proposals were swiftly rejected by Skopje on the grounds that "neither would constitute a logical basis for a solution, given that all had been rejected by one or the other side over the last 15 years". Greek diplomatic sources have intimated that international pressure has now shifted towards the former Yugoslav republic.
A special meeting outside the auspices of the UN was arranged on 21 March 2008, at US ambassador's to NATO Victoria Nuland
Victoria Nuland
Victoria Nuland is the spokesperson for the United States Department of State.-Career:In Summer 2011, Nuland became the State Department Spokesperson...
's house in Brussels, between the two foreign ministers Dora Bakoyannis
Dora Bakoyannis
Dora Bakoyannis , born Theodora Mitsotaki , is a Greek politician. From 2006 to 2009 she was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, the highest position ever held by a woman in the Cabinet of Greece; she was also Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in...
and Antonio Milošoski
Antonio Milošoski
Antonio Milošoski Antonio Milošoski Antonio Milošoski (born January 29, 1976 in Tetovo, SR Macedonia, (now Republic of Macedonia) is a Macedonian politician and Minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Macedonia from 2006 until 2011....
and with the presence of the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
The Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs is a position within the American Department of State that leads the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs charged with implementing American foreign policy in Europe and Eurasia, and with advising the Under Secretary for...
, Daniel Fried
Daniel Fried
Daniel Fried is a senior career diplomat of the United States who carries the rank of Ambassador. He is presently serving as a Special Envoy to facilitate the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp located in Cuba. Previously, he was the top U.S. diplomat in Europe, and prior to that he was...
. Following the meeting, both ministers stressed for the first time their "commitment" for finding a solution until NATO's summit.
The first voices seeking compromise have started to be heard in Skopje. The president of the republic, Branko Crvenkovski
Branko Crvenkovski
Branko Crvenkovski leads the Republic of Macedonia's largest opposition party, the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia. He was Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2002 to 2004, then President of the Republic of Macedonia from 2004 to 2009.Crvenkovski was...
, announced: "If during the ongoing talks we can reach a rational compromise, which from the one side will defend our ethnic identity, and from the other will enable us to receive the NATO invitation, while at the same time canceling our further EU accession obstacles, then I think that this is something that must be supported, and I personally side with the supporters. Some accuse me that with my stance I am undermining the negotiating position of the Republic of Macedonia, yet I do not agree, because we are not in the beginning, but in the final phase of the negotiations. The one who will tell me that the price is high, is obliged to address the public opinion and announce an alternative scenario on how Macedonia will develop in the next ten to fifteen years."
In the same spirit, opposing New Social Democratic Party
New Social Democratic Party
The New Social Democratic Party is a centre-left social democratic party in the Republic of Macedonia. Its leader is Tito Petkovski, who parted with the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia in November 2005...
party leader Tito Petkovski
Tito Petkovski
Tito Petkovski is a politician of the Republic of Macedonia, and leads the New Social Democratic Party. He was born on January 23, 1945 in Kriva Palanka, Yugoslavia .He was named after longtime President of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito....
(which by now participates in the governmental coalition until NATO's summit), announced: "I do not hide that we must proceed on an international usage name's change, with some type of addition, which in no way must put our values under question. I do not want to proceed in an auction with the name, because that will be very damaging also for the interests of the neighboring country that disputes it." He added that "the overwhelming majority of the state and the scholars, ask for a solution and for a way out, using something that does not put our identity and our cultural distinction under questioning. I think that such a solution can be found, especially if the greatest lobbyists and supporters of ours, the United States, declare that Macedonia will be safe, with a safe territorial integrity, with financial support and dynamic development. If we declare which name we support, probably there will be more terms".
However, governing VMRO-DPMNE party leader, and current prime minister, Nikola Gruevski
Nikola Gruevski
Nikola Gruevski has been Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia since 27 August 2006. He has led VMRO-DPMNE since May 2003. He was Minister of Finance in the VMRO-DPMNE government led by Ljubčo Georgievski until September 2002.- Personal life :...
, when asked to comment on these statements, said: "We have different views from Mr. Petkovski, however there is still time to overcome these differences and reach a solution which will benefit the country".
Centre-left Greek newspaper To Vima
To Vima
To Vima is a Greek daily newspaper first published in 1922 by Dimitris Lambrakis, the father of Christos Lambrakis. It is owned by Lambrakis Press Group, a group which also publishes the newspaper Ta Nea, amongst others in its fold of publications...
reported that the two countries were close to an agreement on the basis of the name "New Macedonia" or the untranslated native form, "Nova Makedonija".
Another meeting under the auspices of UN mediator Matthew Nimetz
Matthew Nimetz
Matthew Nimetz is an American diplomat.He is the United Nations Special Representative for the naming dispute between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia....
was held in New York on 25 March 2008. Nimetz announced his final proposal, with a name "with a geographic dimension, and for all purposes". He also noted that the proposal was a compromise, and that the ways of implementation were also included in his proposal. The two representatives will urgently return to their countries for consultation on this proposal, given the short timeframe until NATO's summit. According to the latest Greek media reports, Nimetz revived his 2005 proposal, "Republic of Macedonia-Skopje". The news agency for Macedonian private television station A1 reported that the full proposal was:
- The constitutional name, in Cyrillic ("Република Македонија") could be used for internal purposes.
- "Republic of Macedonia (Skopje)" would be used for international relations.
- For bilateral relations, "Republic of Macedonia (Skopje)" is suggested, and any countries using the state's constitutional name would be encouraged to use it, but not forced to change it.
- The terms "Macedonia" and "Macedonian", on their own, would be able to be used freely by both countries
The Macedonian government has not yet issued a statement on whether the proposal has been accepted or rejected.
Greek foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis told journalists that the proposal does not meet Greece's stated objectives.
The Macedonian foreign minister, Antonio Milošoski, stated that any reasonable solution that did not impose on the identity of ethnic Macedonians would be explored. However, he also stated that if Greece were to veto the country's entrance into NATO, compromise talks would be stopped.
Meanwhile, police in Skopje said they were investigating death threats against academics, journalists and politicians who publicly favour reaching a compromise in the dispute with Greece.
NATO non-invitation
On 3 April 2008, in NATO's summit in Bucharest2008 Bucharest summit
The 2008 Bucharest Summit or the 20th NATO Summit was a NATO summit organized in Bucharest, Romania on 2 – 4 April 2008. Among other business, Croatia and Albania were invited to join the alliance. Republic of Macedonia was not invited due to its ongoing naming dispute with Greece...
, Greece presented its case on the non-invitation of the republic. NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
Jakob Gijsbert "Jaap" de Hoop Scheffer is a retired Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal . He served as the 11th Secretary General of NATO from January 5, 2004 until August 1, 2009....
announced the mutually agreed text of the NATO members, which included the following points:
- Reason for no invitation was the inability to find solution in the name dispute
- Open invitation to the government of Skopje for new negotiations for the name under the auspices of the United Nations,
- The wish that those negotiations start as soon as possible
- And the further wish that they are concluded as soon as possible, without mentioning a specific time frame.
A major concern cited by Greek officials was a number of maps that have circulated by nationalist groups based in Skopje depicting parts of Greece (including Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city) as being part of a future United Macedonia
United Macedonia
United Macedonia is an irredentist concept among ethnic Macedonian nationalists that aims to unify the transnational region of Macedonia in southeastern Europe, which they claim as their homeland, and which they assert was wrongfully divided under the Treaty of Bucharest in 1913, into a single...
, and the country's prime minister photographed laying a wreath under such a map just a few weeks before the summit. Also a poster displayed in Skopje just days before the Bucharest summit by an artist replacing the white cross on the Greek flag
Flag of Greece
The flag of Greece , officially recognized by Greece as one of its national symbols, is based on nine equal horizontal stripes of blue alternating with white...
with the swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
, as a way of comparing modern Greece to Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. and caricatures of Greek PM Karamanlis depicted wearing a Nazi SS uniform, led to vigorous Greek diplomatic protests and international condemnation, although the government disassociated itself from the depictions and expressed it has no connection and no authority over artists' works.
According to media reports, the Greek position was strongly supported by France and Spain. Italy, Portugal, Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
, Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
, Belgium, Hungary, Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, and the Netherlands also showed understanding to the Greek concerns.
The US proposal for inviting the country under its UN provisional reference (FYROM) was backed by Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
, the Czech Republic, Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, Denmark, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, and Norway.
Germany, the United Kingdom, and Canada were reported neutral.
According to polls, 95% of Greeks consider that the veto was a correct action, while only 1% oppose it. At the same time, Greece maintains its focus on promoting its neighbour's NATO and EU accession as soon as the naming issue is resolved.
A continuing negotiation
The Assembly of the Republic of MacedoniaAssembly of the Republic of Macedonia
The Parliament of the Republic of Macedonia, the Assembly , has 123 members, elected for a four year term, by proportional representation from 6 electoral districts, each contributing 20 MPs.- Result :...
voted on 11 April 2008 to dissolve itself and hold early elections
Macedonian parliamentary election, 2008
Early parliamentary elections were held in the Republic of Macedonia on 1 June 2008 after the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia voted to dissolve itself on 12 April 2008...
within sixty days. Following a meeting with the four major parties, president Branko Crvenkovski
Branko Crvenkovski
Branko Crvenkovski leads the Republic of Macedonia's largest opposition party, the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia. He was Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2002 to 2004, then President of the Republic of Macedonia from 2004 to 2009.Crvenkovski was...
announced the continuation of the negotiations for the name, despite the parliament dissolution. The parties agreed that the dispute should not be a matter of heavy political debate before the elections.
Matthew Nimetz visited Skopje on 17 April 2008 and Athens on the following day, initiating a new cycle of negotiations, but without bearing a new proposal yet.
Talks continued in New York from 30 April to 2 May 2008, though Nimetz again did not propose a new compromise name.
2008 proposal and reactions
According to media from both sides, the main points of the proposal from 8 October 2008 are the following:- the name "Republic of Macedonia" will stay the official name inside the country (in the native language)
- the name for the country in all official purposes (i.e. United NationsUnited NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, EU, NATO) will be "Republic of North Macedonia" - UN Security Council will suggest to third countries to use the name "Republic of North Macedonia" in official bilateral relations
- the name "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" will no longer be an acceptable name for the country
- "Macedonia" alone cannot be used by any of the two parties as an official name for the country or the region.
- Both parties can use "Macedonia" and "Macedonian" in unofficial settings, with the precondition that they will not claim exclusive rights of any kind.
- the front page of the Macedonian passportMacedonian passportThe Macedonian passport is issued to citizens of the Republic of Macedonia for the purpose of international travel. Responsibility for their issuance lies with the Ministry of the Interior. The validity of the passport is 5 years for persons under the age of 27, and 10 years for those 27 years...
s will contain the following names for the country:- Republic of North Macedonia in English
- République de Macédoine du Nord in French
- Република Македонија in MacedonianMacedonian languageMacedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
- Greece will support the integration of its neighbouring country into EU and NATO
- both countries will confirm that they have no territorial claims towards each other
Reaction by ethnic Macedonian politicians/diplomats
The cabinet of the President of the Republic of MacedoniaPresident of the Republic of Macedonia
The President of the Republic of Macedonia is the head of state of the Republic of Macedonia. The institution of the Presidency of the modern Republic of Macedonia began after the Macedonian declaration of independence on 8 September 1991. Its first president was Kiro Gligorov, the oldest president...
, Branko Crvenkovski
Branko Crvenkovski
Branko Crvenkovski leads the Republic of Macedonia's largest opposition party, the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia. He was Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2002 to 2004, then President of the Republic of Macedonia from 2004 to 2009.Crvenkovski was...
, announced that the Republic of Macedonia wants "serious changes" in the latest proposal and that the presented set of ideas could not be a basis for the resolution of the dispute. Prime minister Nikola Gruevski
Nikola Gruevski
Nikola Gruevski has been Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia since 27 August 2006. He has led VMRO-DPMNE since May 2003. He was Minister of Finance in the VMRO-DPMNE government led by Ljubčo Georgievski until September 2002.- Personal life :...
agreed with Crvenkovski.
Reaction by Greek politicians/diplomats
The English edition of the Greek newspaper Kathimerini reported that Greek diplomats, privately, have welcomed the proposals. Greek Foreign Minister Dora BakoyannisDora Bakoyannis
Dora Bakoyannis , born Theodora Mitsotaki , is a Greek politician. From 2006 to 2009 she was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, the highest position ever held by a woman in the Cabinet of Greece; she was also Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in...
, however, has not yet made a comment on the newest set of proposals. It is also said, that Athens will not state its position before Skopje. In the mean time, all major opposition parties have already expressed serious concerns about the proposal since it crosses the "red line" that Greece has set on a single name to be used erga omnes
Erga omnes
In legal terminology, erga omnes rights or obligations are owed toward all. For instance a property right is an erga omnes entitlement, and therefore enforceable against anybody infringing that right...
.
Before either Athens or Skopje had officially responded to the proposal, the Athenian daily Ethnos published an alleged secret diplomatic correspondence of the US State Department
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
. The leaked document, originally tagged as classified until 2018, was said to detail a behind-the-scenes deal between Washington and Skopje on the main provisions of the Nimetz proposal as early as July. According to the newspaper, the latest UN-sponsored set of ideas were secretly sketched to please Skopje by the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
three months earlier. The report sparked outrage in Greece, with opposition parties accusing the government of tolerating "US interference" in the UN mediation process and calling for Greece's withdrawal from the negotiations. Skopje "strongly and categorically" denied all claims of the existence of a secret deal with Washington.
The UN International Court of Justice
In November 2008, Skopje instituted proceedings against Athens in front of the UN’s International Court of JusticeInternational Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands...
for what it described as “a flagrant violation of [Greece’s] obligations under Article 11 of the Interim Accord signed by the Parties on 13 September 1995”.
Following the submissions of memorials and counter-memorials, and the public hearings, the legal positions of the parties were as follows:
Republic of Macedonia requested that:
- Greek objections to the jurisdiction of the Court should be rejected,
- The Court should adjudge and declare that Greece has violated the obligations under the provisions of the Interim Accord, Article 11, paragraph 1, and
- The Court to order Greece to immediately take all necessary steps to comply with the obligations under the above provisions, and to refrain from objecting in any way, directly or indirectly to the membership of the Republic of Macedonia in NATO and/or any other any other “international, multilateral and regional organizations and institutions” if the Republic of Macedonia applies for such membership under the name “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”.
The Hellenic Republic requested that the Court:
- Should find that the case does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Court and to reject it as inadmissible;
- In the event that the Court finds that it has jurisdiction over the case submitted by the Applicant, than to find those claims as unfounded.
The Court scheduled 5. December 2011 as the date for delivering its judgement.
Political reactions to the Application in the ICJ
- Greece issued a statement condemning its northern neighbor for "confirming that it is not interested in a solution", adding that "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has itself flagrantly violated a series of fundamental obligations expressly foreseen by the Accord, including the fundamental principle of good neighbourly relations."
- The prime minister of the Republic of Macedonia Nikola Gruevski announced on 25 November 2008 that the "name negotiations will resume despite Macedonia’s lawsuit against Greece". The EU has so far not commented on the latest situation.
- Reinforcing the Greek position that in the summit of Bucharest there was no veto, on the 21st of November in a conference in Skopje, the Czech representative in NATO Štefan Füle reiterated that there has not been a veto from Greece but that there was not a consensus on invitation.
- The Gruevski government's decision to pursue legal action against Athens was criticised by then-president Branko CrvenkovskiBranko CrvenkovskiBranko Crvenkovski leads the Republic of Macedonia's largest opposition party, the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia. He was Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2002 to 2004, then President of the Republic of Macedonia from 2004 to 2009.Crvenkovski was...
, highlighting the internal tensions in Skopje between the government and the presidency. Noting that the process could take years, the president called it a "waste of valuable time", given that there was no way for the World Court to enforce any verdict in Skopje's favour.
Talks in 2009
The first round of name talks in 2009 took place on 11 February. The UN Mediator Nimetz did not propose a new solution for the name row, but it was agreed that talks should continue after elections in Greece and the Republic of Macedonia, probably in July or August. Republic of Macedonia's new name negotiator Zoran JolevskiZoran Jolevski
H.E. Ph.D. Zoran Jolevski is a Macedonian diplomat and the ambassador of the Republic of Macedonia to the United States of America. In November 2008, he was appointed chief negotiator to the Macedonia naming dispute, and beginning 2011 he was appointed Ambassador to the United Mexican States and...
told the mediator and the Greek negotiator that if the Republic of Macedonia would receive a NATO membership invitation at the Alliance's next summit in April, this would be positive for the name talks. One week before the fresh name talks, Macedonian foreign minister Antonio Milošoski
Antonio Milošoski
Antonio Milošoski Antonio Milošoski Antonio Milošoski (born January 29, 1976 in Tetovo, SR Macedonia, (now Republic of Macedonia) is a Macedonian politician and Minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Macedonia from 2006 until 2011....
told German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
newspaper "die tageszeitung
Die tageszeitung
die tageszeitung , was founded in 1978 in Berlin. It is a cooperative-owned German daily newspaper which is administrated by a workers' self-management...
" that a solution could be found "only on bilateral basis". The Republic of Macedonia indicated it could be ready to allow Greece to use another name for the country, such as "Republic of Macedonia (Skopje)", however, its citizens would decide on a referendum for that. In addition, foreign minister Antonio Milošoski
Antonio Milošoski
Antonio Milošoski Antonio Milošoski Antonio Milošoski (born January 29, 1976 in Tetovo, SR Macedonia, (now Republic of Macedonia) is a Macedonian politician and Minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Macedonia from 2006 until 2011....
sent a letter to the Greek foreign ministry with a proposal of forming a joint committee of scholars from both countries who would work on determining the historical facts of the dispute, but this was promptly dismissed by Athens.
CSIS Conference
On April 14, 2009, at the Center for Strategic and International StudiesCenter for Strategic and International Studies
The Center for Strategic and International Studies is a bipartisan Washington, D.C., foreign policy think tank. The center was founded in 1962 by Admiral Arleigh Burke and Ambassador David Manker Abshire, originally as part of Georgetown University...
Conference on the topic of Completing America's Mission in the Balkans moderated by Janusz Bugajski, the Ambassador of Macedonia H.E. Zoran Jolevski
Zoran Jolevski
H.E. Ph.D. Zoran Jolevski is a Macedonian diplomat and the ambassador of the Republic of Macedonia to the United States of America. In November 2008, he was appointed chief negotiator to the Macedonia naming dispute, and beginning 2011 he was appointed Ambassador to the United Mexican States and...
stated the following
"Greece, in essence, moved the goal posts further away, and our fear is that they will continue to move the goal posts again, and again, and again. The question then becomes, will they stop? Because, dear friends, the dignity and identity of an entire nation is at stake here that cannot be compromised."
Later on, they moved into an open discussion where the Greek Ambassador in the US Alexandros Mallias stated that Greece would accept the last proposal by the UN Mediator Matthew Nimetz
Matthew Nimetz
Matthew Nimetz is an American diplomat.He is the United Nations Special Representative for the naming dispute between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia....
for the international use of "Republic of Northern Macedonia".
Geneva Talks
On June 22, 2009, the UN Mediator Matthew NimetzMatthew Nimetz
Matthew Nimetz is an American diplomat.He is the United Nations Special Representative for the naming dispute between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia....
, together with the negotiators from both sides gathered in Geneva to discuss the differences and the problematic points of the dispute. According to Nimetz, the negotiations had made some progress which identified and discussed the issues that had so far stalled the solution process. Both sides were strong on their positions. Mediator Nimetz visited the Republic of Macedonia on July 6 to July 8, then Greece from July 8 to July 10.
August 2009
In August 2009, UN mediator Matthew Nimetz expressed pessimism regarding the Greek response to the names he proposed in his July meetings. Nimetz said “Efforts to solve the name issue continue, even though Greece’s answer is not positive". According to the Greek representative, Athens would not accept a proposed formulation that was only intended for use in bilateral relations, and insisted that any name that is decided must be used internationally. In late August, Nimetz met Zoran Jolevski, the ethnic Macedonian negotiator who said that "Macedonia is committed to active participation in the talks over the name and we expect a mutually acceptable solution, which will ensure preserving of the identity, dignity and integrity of the Macedonian citizens on the basis of Euro-Atlantic values and democratic principles.” The "name talks" were frozen because of Athens’ rejection of essential points in the most recent proposal and the elections in Greece in October. The actual talks may, it is reported, restart in May 2010 when the new Greek prime minister will have more space for negotiations.April 2010
In early April 2010, it emerged that the Greek government considered "Northern Macedonia" a possible compromise name, indicating it was up to the Republic of Macedonia to decide whether to accept that proposal. The Macedonian Prime minister Nicola Gruevski declared he would reject this proposition and called for a vote on the new name.June 2010
The June 13th issue of KathimeriniKathimerini
I Kathimerini is a daily morning newspaper published in Athens. It is published in the Greek language, as well as in an abridged English-language edition. The English edition is sold separately in the United States and as a supplement to the International Herald Tribune in Greece and Cyprus. On 2...
reported that sources claim that Greece and the Republic of Macedonia appear to be close to a solution to their name dispute, and are set to agree on using the name of the Vardar
Vardar
The Vardar or Axios is the longest and major river in the Republic of Macedonia and also a major river of Greece. It is long, and drains an area of around . The maximum depth of river is ....
river (the longest river in the Republic of Macedonia) to differentiate the Republic of Macedonia from Greek Macedonia. It is not clear at this stage if this would mean Republic of Macedonia would be called "Republic of Macedonia of Vardar", "Republic of Vardar Macedonia", "Vardar Republic of Macedonia" or "Republic of Macedonia (Vardar)".
The Macedonian Human Rights Movement International (MHRMI) and the Australian Macedonian Human Rights Committee (AMHRC) have launched a campaign placing advertisements in newspapers and billboards across Macedonia "demanding an end to all negotiations with Greece over its name".
January 2011
Reports were released that Antonis Samaras, the leaderLeader of the Opposition
The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the largest party not in government in a Westminster System of parliamentary government...
of New Democracy
New Democracy (Greece)
New Democracy is the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece. It was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic...
, will be summoned to the Hague
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands...
trial issued by Skopje on Greece for breaking the 1995 Interim Agreement, after evidence was found of him addressing the Greek parliament and clearly stating that his Government (New Democracy then in power) vetoed the invitation of the Republic of Macedonia in the 2008 Bucharest NATO summit
2008 Bucharest summit
The 2008 Bucharest Summit or the 20th NATO Summit was a NATO summit organized in Bucharest, Romania on 2 – 4 April 2008. Among other business, Croatia and Albania were invited to join the alliance. Republic of Macedonia was not invited due to its ongoing naming dispute with Greece...
. Also in this year the dispute was inflamed by the erection of a statue in Skopje of a mounted warrior which copies a portrait of Alexander the Great attributed to the ancient Greek sculptor Lysippus, and the inauguration of a sports stadium named after Alexander's father Philip II.
November 2011
- In his farewell speech to the Parliament, the outgoing prime minister George PapandreouGeorge PapandreouGeorgios A. Papandreou , commonly anglicised to George and shortened to Γιώργος in Greek, is a Greek politician who served as Prime Minister of Greece following his party's victory in the 2009 legislative election...
listed the immediate settlement of the name issue as one of the 3 priorities of the next government. - After closing the submissions of memorials and public hearings of the parties in March 2011, the International Court of JusticeInternational Court of JusticeThe International Court of Justice is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands...
announced that it will deliver its judgement in the case of Republic of Macedonia vs. Greece on 5 December 2011.
Naming policies of foreign countries and organisations
Countries/entities using "Republic of Macedonia" for bilateral purposes
It is claimed that up to 132 countries established diplomatic relations using the name "Republic of Macedonia", but there has never been a formal list with the names of these countries, issued by a competent government authority in SkopjeSkopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
. Some of the previous countries used this name from the outset, others switched their stance after originally using the UN reference "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (notably the United States under George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
's administration), while the opposite also has been observed (as in the case of Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, withdrawing its previous recognition). However, use of the UN reference is still ongoing in countries that in the past recognised the name "Republic of Macedonia". United States during President Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
's administration, use the name "the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" and its abbrevation ("FYROM") in official documentation.
The following list consists of some of the countries and entities that use the name "Republic of Macedonia", consistently or not.
Permanent members of the UN Security Council, except France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
: (NATO and G8
G8
The Group of Eight is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of seven major economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming the G8...
member ) (EU, NATO and G8 member) (G8 member)
States formerly part of SFR Yugoslavia:
(NATO member) (EU and NATO member)
Neighbouring countries, except Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
: (EU and NATO member)
Others:
(EU member) (NATO and G8 member) (EU and NATO member) (EU and NATO member) (EU and NATO member) (EU member) (EU and NATO member) (EU and NATO member) (Burma) (NATO member) (EU and NATO member) (EU and NATO member) (EU and NATO member) (EU member) (NATO member)
Countries/entities using "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" for all official purposes
(NATO member) (EU and NATO member)-
Cyprus (no diplomatic relations; EU member) (EU and NATO member) (EU, NATO, G8 and permanent UN Security Council member) (EU, NATO and G8 member) (EU and NATO member) (EU, NATO and G8 member) (G8 member) (EU and NATO member) (EU and NATO member) (EU and NATO member) (no diplomatic relations) (EU and NATO member)
Countries/entities where naming is unclear
Conflicting or inconclusive reports on name usage or recognition. (Mexico withdrew recognition of constitutional name Oct 2008)-
Republic of ChinaRepublic of ChinaThe Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
(TaiwanTaiwanTaiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
) (no diplomatic relations since 2001)
No reports on name usage or recognition
These countries/entities have no diplomatic relations with the state: (EU member)- States with limited recognition
International organisations
The following international organisations use the reference adopted by the UN - "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (or a variant thereof) in their official proceedings:- United NationsUnited NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, - European UnionEuropean UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
, - NATO, with a footnote in all referring documents that Turkey recognises the country as Macedonia
- International Monetary FundInternational Monetary FundThe International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...
, - OECD and DAC–OECD (Development Co-operation Directorate),}
- World Trade OrganizationWorld Trade OrganizationThe World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...
, - International Olympic CommitteeInternational Olympic CommitteeThe International Olympic Committee is an international corporation based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre de Coubertin on 23 June 1894 with Demetrios Vikelas as its first president...
, - World BankWorld BankThe World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
, - Council of EuropeCouncil of EuropeThe Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
- European Bank for Reconstruction and DevelopmentEuropean Bank for Reconstruction and DevelopmentFounded in 1991, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development uses the tools of investment to help build market economies and democracies in 30 countries from central Europe to central Asia. Its mission was to support the formerly communist countries in the process of establishing their...
, - Organization for Security and Co-operation in EuropeOrganization for Security and Co-operation in EuropeThe Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe is the world's largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, human rights, freedom of the press and fair elections...
, - FIFAFIFAThe Fédération Internationale de Football Association , commonly known by the acronym FIFA , is the international governing body of :association football, futsal and beach football. Its headquarters are located in Zurich, Switzerland, and its president is Sepp Blatter, who is in his fourth...
, - UEFAUEFAThe Union of European Football Associations , almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA is the administrative and controlling body for European association football, futsal and beach soccer....
. - FIBA.
- CERNCERNThe European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
- EBU
- FIDE
- Organisation internationale de la Francophonie
- International Mathematics Olympiad
- Association of Tennis ProfessionalsAssociation of Tennis ProfessionalsThe Association of Tennis Professionals or ATP was formed in 1972 by Donald Dell, Jack Kramer, and Cliff Drysdale to protect the interests of male professional tennis players. Since 1990, the association has organized the worldwide tennis tour for men and linked the title of the tour with the...
Greek position
The constitutional name of the country "Republic of Macedonia" and the short name "Macedonia" when referring to the country, can be considered offensive by most GreeksGreeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
, especially inhabitants of the Greek region
Regions of Greece
The traditional geographic divisions of Greece were also the official administrative subdivisions of Greece until the 1987 administrative reform )...
of Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
. The Greek government officially uses the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
' provisional reference for the country ("the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia") and by the main international organisations, including the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
. The official reasons for this, as described by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Foreign relations of Greece
Prominent issues in Greek foreign policy include the enduring dispute over Cyprus and differences with Turkey over the Aegean, the dispute over the name of the Republic of Macedonia , and relations with the United States.-Overview:Greece has diplomatic relations with almost all the...
, are:
The current Prime Minister and leader of the governing party, PASOK
Panhellenic Socialist Movement
The Panhellenic Socialist Movement , known mostly by its acronym PASOK , is one of the two major political parties in Greece. Founded on 3 September 1974 by Andreas Papandreou, in 1981 PASOK became Greece's first social democratic party to win a majority in parliament.The party is a socialist party...
, George Papandreou has stated that "in January 2002, when he was Minister for Foreign Affairs
Minister for Foreign Affairs (Greece)
The Minister for Foreign Affairs is the senior minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece, established on 3 April 1833. The current Minister for Foreign Affairs, since 11 November 2011 is the former European Commissioner Stavros Dimas...
, was next to a deal with Skopje leadership about using the name "Горна Македонија" ("Gorna Makedonija" - "Upper Macedonia" in Slavic). The other parties and the President of the Republic, he said, were informed but the solution process didn't work, because the Tetovo crisis
2001 Macedonia conflict
The insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia was an armed conflict which began when the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army militant group attacked the security forces of the Republic of Macedonia at the beginning of January 2001...
broke out." The Academy of Athens
Academy of Athens (modern)
The Academy of Athens is Greece's national academy, and the highest research establishment in the country. It was established in 1926, and operates under the supervision of the Ministry of Education...
concludes:
The Greek concerns can be analyzed as follows:
Historical concerns
Greeks argue that the name Macedonia is historically inseparably associated with Greek culture, ever since the ancient kingdom of Macedonia and the ancient Macedonians
Ancient Macedonians
The Macedonians originated from inhabitants of the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, in the alluvial plain around the rivers Haliacmon and lower Axios...
. They therefore consider that only Greeks have a historical right to use the name today, since the modern southern Slavs arrived 1,000 years after that kingdom, lacking any relation to ancient Macedonia or its Greek culture. Efforts by ethnic Macedonians to construct a narrative of ethnic continuity linking them to the ancient Macedonians in various ways and symbolic actions underlining such claims, such as the public use of the Vergina sun
Vergina Sun
The Vergina Sun — also known as the Star of Vergina, Macedonian star, or Argead Star — is the name given to a symbol of a stylised star or sun with sixteen rays. It was unearthed in 1977 during excavations in Vergina, in the northern Greek region of Macedonia, by archaeologist Manolis Andronikos...
symbol as a flag of the Republic of Macedonia, or the renaming of Skopje Airport
Skopje Airport
Skopje Airport , or Skopje "Alexander the Great" Airport is the larger and busier of the two international airports in the Republic of Macedonia...
to "Alexander the Great Airport" meet strong criticism from the Greek side, much of the international media that report on the issue, and even from moderate political views in the Republic of Macedonia itself.
According to news reports there are plans for an "eight-story-high" statue of Alexander the Great on horseback to be built in the center of the city of Skopje. Greece has scornfully characterised the effort, with the foreign ministry commenting on the size of the statue as "inversely proportional to seriousness and historical truth". The project received criticism by the European Union, calling it "not helpful" as well as by Skopje architects and ethnic Macedonian academics and politicians commenting on the aesthetic outcome and the semantics of such a move.
Some Greek historians emphasise the late emergence of a "Macedonian" nation, often pointing to 1944 as the date of its "artificial" creation under Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
, discounting earlier roots in the 19th and early 20th century.
The Greek view also stresses that the name Macedonia as a geographical term historically used to refer typically to the southern, Greek parts of the region (including the capital of the ancient kingdom, Pella
Pella
Pella , an ancient Greek city located in Pella Prefecture of Macedonia in Greece, was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia.-Etymology:...
), and not or only marginally to the territory of today's Republic. They also note that the territory was not called Macedonia as a political entity until 1944.
Several hundred international and Greek classical scholars have lobbied for the historical concerns regarding the name dispute to be reflected in US policy.
Territorial concerns
Greek Civil War
The Greek Civil War was fought from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek governmental army, backed by the United Kingdom and United States, and the Democratic Army of Greece , the military branch of the Greek Communist Party , backed by Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania...
, in 1947 the Greek Ministry of Press and Information published a book, Ἡ ἐναντίον τῆς Ἑλλάδος ἐπιβουλή (Designs on Greece), including documents and speeches on the ongoing Macedonian issue, many translations from Yugoslav officials. It reports Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
using the term "Aegean Macedonia
Aegean Macedonia
Aegean Macedonia is a term that refers to the Greek region of Macedonia. It is currently mainly used in the Republic of Macedonia, including in the irredentist context of a United Macedonia. The term is also used in Bulgaria as the more common synonym for Greek Macedonia, without the connotations...
" on 11 October 1945 in the build up to the Greek Civil War; the original document is archived in ‘GFM A/24581/G2/1945’. For Athens in 1947, the “new term, Aegean Macedonia”, (also “Pirin Macedonia”), was introduced by Yugoslavs. Contextually, this observation indicates this was part of the Yugoslav offensive against Greece, laying claim to Greek Macedonia, but Athens does not seem to take issue with the term itself. The 1945 date concurs with Bulgarian sources.
Tito's wartime representative to Macedonia, General Tempo (Svetozar Vukmanovic), is credited with promoting the usage of the new regional names of the Macedonian region for irredentist purposes. Concerns over territorial implications of the usage of the term "Macedonian" were expressed as early as 1944 by US diplomats.
Greece suspects that the Republic of Macedonia has territorial ambitions
United Macedonia
United Macedonia is an irredentist concept among ethnic Macedonian nationalists that aims to unify the transnational region of Macedonia in southeastern Europe, which they claim as their homeland, and which they assert was wrongfully divided under the Treaty of Bucharest in 1913, into a single...
in the northern Greek provinces of Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
. This has been a Greek concern for decades; as far back as 1957, the Greek government expressed concern about reported Yugoslav ambitions to create an "independent" People's Republic of Macedonia with the Greek city of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
as its capital.
Loring M. Danforth
Loring Danforth
Loring M. Danforth is a professor of anthropology and epistemology, and an author working at Bates College in the United States.Danforth received a B.A. from Amherst College in 1971 and a M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1974 and 1978. He has written many books and articles on...
ascribes the goal of a "free, united, and independent Macedonia" including "liberated" Bulgarian and Greek territory to a fraction of extreme Macedonian nationalists, whereas more moderate ethnic Macedonians recognise the inviolability of the borders but regard the presence of ethnic Macedonians in the neighbouring countries as an issue of minority protection.
Greek analysts and politicians have expressed concerns that western observers tend to overlook or not to understand the severity of the perceived territorial threat and tend to misunderstand the conflict as a trivial issue over just a name.
The concerns are further reinforced by the fact that extremist ethnic Macedonian nationalists of the "United Macedonia
United Macedonia
United Macedonia is an irredentist concept among ethnic Macedonian nationalists that aims to unify the transnational region of Macedonia in southeastern Europe, which they claim as their homeland, and which they assert was wrongfully divided under the Treaty of Bucharest in 1913, into a single...
" movement have expressed irredentist claims to what they refer to as "Aegean Macedonia" (in Greece), "Pirin Macedonia" (in Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
), "Mala Prespa and Golo Brdo
Mala Prespa and Golo Brdo
Prespa e Vogël and Golloborda , refers to a geographical area situated in southeastern Albania. This region consists of two areas: Prespa e Vogël and Golloborda...
" (in Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
), and "Gora
Gora (region)
Gora is a geographical region in southern Serbia and northeastern Albania, inhabited by Albanians and a Gorani minority. The name "Gora" is a Slavic word for "mountain" or "forest"....
and Prohor Pchinski" (in Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
).
Greek Macedonians, Bulgarians, Albanians and Serbs form the overwhelming majority of the population of each part of the region respectively.
Schoolbooks and official government publications in the Republic have shown the country as part of an unliberated whole.
In April 2008 Foreign Minister of Greece Dora Bakoyannis
Dora Bakoyannis
Dora Bakoyannis , born Theodora Mitsotaki , is a Greek politician. From 2006 to 2009 she was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, the highest position ever held by a woman in the Cabinet of Greece; she was also Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in...
complained about the prime minister of the Republic of Macedonia Nikola Gruevski
Nikola Gruevski
Nikola Gruevski has been Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia since 27 August 2006. He has led VMRO-DPMNE since May 2003. He was Minister of Finance in the VMRO-DPMNE government led by Ljubčo Georgievski until September 2002.- Personal life :...
appearing in a photograph, by a map of "Greater Macedonia". The complaint was made inside an article published at Wall Street Journal, regarding the NATO ascension talks.
Self-determination
Greek diaspora
The Greek diaspora, also known as Hellenic Diaspora or Diaspora of Hellenism, is a term used to refer to the communities of Greek people living outside the traditional Greek homelands, but more commonly in southeast Europe and Asia Minor...
, the Greek Macedonians feel that their right to self-determination
Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...
is violated by what they regard as the monopolisation of their name by a neighbouring country.
The strong regional identity of the Macedonians was emphasised by the Prime Minister of Greece, Kostas Karamanlis, who in January 2007 during a meeting of the Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
in Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
declared that:
In Greece, the extreme position on the issue suggests that there must be "no Macedonia in the title" of a neighbouring country.
Professor Danforth reports:
More moderate positions suggest that a disambiguating element should be added to the name of the neighbouring state and its people (notably Slav, Vardar or New), so as to illustrate the distinction between not just the two, but all groups of self-identifying Macedonians.
Semiological confusion
| Demographic Macedonia | |
| Macedonians c. 5 million |
All inhabitants of the region, irrespective of ethnicity |
| Macedonians Macedonians (ethnic group) The Macedonians also referred to as Macedonian Slavs: "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness... c. 1.3 million plus diaspora |
A contemporary ethnic group, also referred to as Slavomacedonians or Macedonian Slavs |
| Macedonians c. 2.0 million |
Citizens of the Republic of Macedonia Republic of Macedonia Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991... irrespective of ethnicity |
| Macedonians c. 2.6 million plus diaspora |
An ethnic Greek Greeks The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world.... regional group, also referred to as Greek Macedonians. |
| Macedonians Ancient Macedonians The Macedonians originated from inhabitants of the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, in the alluvial plain around the rivers Haliacmon and lower Axios... (unknown population) |
A group of antiquity |
| Macedonians c. 300.000 |
A Bulgarian Bulgarians The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:... regional group; also referred to as Pirin Pirin The Pirin Mountains are a mountain range in southwestern Bulgaria, with Vihren the highest peak, situated at . The range extends about 40 km northwest-southeast, and about 25 km wide. Most of the range is protected in the Pirin National Park... ers. |
| Macedo-Romanians Aromanians Aromanians are a Latin people native throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and as an emigrant community in Serbia and Romania . An older term is Macedo-Romanians... c. 0.3 million*The figure includes Aromanians in all countries.* |
An alternative name for Aromanians Aromanians Aromanians are a Latin people native throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and as an emigrant community in Serbia and Romania . An older term is Macedo-Romanians... |
The contemporary region of Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...
is a wider region in the Balkan peninsula that spans across several modern states, mainly Greece (Aegean Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
), Bulgaria (Blagoevgrad province
Blagoevgrad Province
Blagoevgrad Province , also known as Pirin Macedonia , is a province of southwestern Bulgaria. It borders four other Bulgarian provinces to the north and east, Greece to the south, and the Republic of Macedonia to the west. The province has 14 municipalities with 12 towns...
), the Republic of Macedonia, and Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
(around Lake Ohrid
Lake Ohrid
Lake Ohrid straddles the mountainous border between the southwestern Macedonia and eastern Albania. It is one of Europe's deepest and oldest lakes, preserving a unique aquatic ecosystem with more than 200 endemic species that is of worldwide importance...
). The definite borders of the region are vague, but most contemporary geographers agree on its general location. There are several ethnic groups in this region, mostly living within their respective states, all of which are technically "Macedonians" in the regional sense. The Republic itself, has a substantial minority (25.2%) of ethnic Albanians
Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia
Albanians are the largest ethnic minority in the Republic of Macedonia. Of the 2,022,547 citizens of Macedonia, 509,083, or 25%, are Albanian according to the latest national census in 2002. The Albanian minority lives mostly in the north-western part of the country...
who are "Macedonians" both in the regional sense, and as legal citizens of the Republic. However, in a Balkans where ethnicity rather than nationhood defines peoples' identity, Albanians are never referred to (or refer to themselves) as Macedonians.
The Greek position suggests that the monopolisation of the name by the Republic and its citizens creates semiological confusion, as it becomes increasingly difficult to disambiguate which "Macedonia", which "Macedonians" and what "Macedonian language" are referred to in each occasion.
According to a source Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
living in Blagoevgrad province
Blagoevgrad Province
Blagoevgrad Province , also known as Pirin Macedonia , is a province of southwestern Bulgaria. It borders four other Bulgarian provinces to the north and east, Greece to the south, and the Republic of Macedonia to the west. The province has 14 municipalities with 12 towns...
(Bulgarian Macedonia) are reported to not identify themselves with their regional term "Macedonians", so as not to be confused with the ethnic Macedonians. According to other sources the traditional use of the term "Macedonians" in Bulgaria as a regional designation continues.
Macedo-Romanians (Aromanians
Aromanians
Aromanians are a Latin people native throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and as an emigrant community in Serbia and Romania . An older term is Macedo-Romanians...
) are often called "Machedoni" by Romanians, as opposed to the citizens of Macedonia, who are called "Macedoneni".
The Greek Macedonians demonstrate a strong regional identity and identify themselves as plain Macedonians, who live in plain Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
, speaking a Macedonian dialect of modern Greek.
Self-determination and self-identification
Skopje rejects many of Athens' objections due to what it sees as several errors in the Greek claims.According to the government in Skopje, the preservation of the constitutional name both for domestic and international use is of utmost importance. The country asserts that it does not lay exclusive claim to the term Macedonia either in the geographic or the historic sense. Various demonstrations and protests in the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
and the ethnic Macedonian diaspora, were held to support their view that their right to self-determination is violated by what they regard as the rejection of the name from the international community. The Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences suggests:
Ethnic Macedonians state they are descendants of the local inhabitants of Macedonia which existed before the Slavic invasions, and the Slavic peoples who invaded the region in the 6th-8th century A.D., mixing both cultures and traditions.
Historical perspective
From a historical perspective, scholars in the Republic of Macedonia blame Greece for claiming ownership over an ancient kingdom which, in their view, was not Greek, claiming historical studies propose there was a considerable degree of political and cultural distance between ancient Greeks and Macedonians. This view contrasts sharply with that of Greek authors, who point to historical data seen as evidence that ancient Macedonians identified as Greeks and spoke Greek. Officially, the ethnic Macedonian claim to continuity with ancient Macedonia is based on Macedonia's population having mixed with the Slavic newcomers after their arrival in the 6th and 7th century, but having retained the Macedonian name, and elements of their traditions and culture. The name Macedonia continued in use as a geographical and political term throughout the Ancient, Roman, Medieval and Modern eras. Moreoever, the former use of the Vergina SunVergina Sun
The Vergina Sun — also known as the Star of Vergina, Macedonian star, or Argead Star — is the name given to a symbol of a stylised star or sun with sixteen rays. It was unearthed in 1977 during excavations in Vergina, in the northern Greek region of Macedonia, by archaeologist Manolis Andronikos...
by the Republic of Macedonia had intended to appeal to all ethnic groups in Macedonia, as an ancient symbol which preceded the ethnic division of the present, The argument of legitimacy also extends to the view that much of today's Greek Macedonia was only fully Hellenised by political and military means in modern times. Since the division of Macedonia in 1913, Greece has carried out a policy of Hellenisation of the local population, forcing name changes, religious affiliation, and writings of church, frescoes and graves to Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
. During the Ioannis Metaxas
Ioannis Metaxas
Ioannis Metaxas was a Greek general, politician, and dictator, serving as Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death in 1941...
era, Macedonians were deported or tortured for speaking or claiming to be Macedonian. Slavic-speaking Macedonians argue that they have a more legitimate claim to the name Macedonia to many Greek Macedonians, who are descendents of Greek immigrants and refugees that were settled in Macedonia from regions such as Anatolia, Epirus and Thrace during the early twentieth century.
Ethnic Macedonian minority in Greece
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
-speaking populations came into northern Greece and the ethnic composition of the wider Macedonia region
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...
, and Slavic languages have been spoken in the area alongside Greek in the region ever since. In parts of northern Greece, in the regions of Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
(Μακεδονία) and Thrace
Western Thrace
Western Thrace or simply Thrace is a geographic and historical region of Greece, located between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, it is often referred to informally as northern Greece...
(Θράκη), Slavonic languages continue to be spoken by people with a wide range of self-identifications. The actual linguistic classification of these dialects is unclear, although most linguists will classify them as either Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
or Macedonian Slavic
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
taking into account numerous factors, including the resemblance and mutual intelligibility of each dialect to the standard languages (abstand), and the self-identification of the speakers themselves. As however the vast majority of these people don't have a non-Greek national identity, linguists will make their decisions based on abstand alone. The Slavic-speaking minority of northern Greece can be divided in to two main groups: Christians
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and Muslims
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
. The latter has no reported connection to ethnic Macedonians.
The Christian portion of Greece's Slavic-speaking minority are commonly referred to as Slavophones (from the Greek Σλαβόφωνοι Slavophōnoi - lit. Slavic-speakers) or Dopii, which means "locals" in Greek. The vast majority of them espouse a Greek national identity and are bilingual in Greek. They live mostly in the Periphery of Western Macedonia
West Macedonia
West Macedonia is one of the thirteen regions of Greece, consisting of the western part of Greek Macedonia. It is divided into the regional units of Florina, Grevena, Kastoria, and Kozani.-Geography:...
and belong to the Greek Orthodox Church
Church of Greece
The Church of Greece , part of the wider Greek Orthodox Church, is one of the autocephalous churches which make up the communion of Orthodox Christianity...
, which in conjunction with the millet
Millet (Ottoman Empire)
Millet is a term for the confessional communities in the Ottoman Empire. It refers to the separate legal courts pertaining to "personal law" under which communities were allowed to rule themselves under their own system...
system of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
which occupied the region until 1913, may explain their self-identification as Greeks. In the 1951 census, 41,017 people claimed to speak the Slavic language. One unofficial estimate for 2000 puts their number at 1.8% of the Greek population, that is c.200,000.
This group has received some attention in recent years due to claims from the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
that these people form an ethnic Macedonian
Macedonians (ethnic group)
The Macedonians also referred to as Macedonian Slavs: "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness...
minority in Greece. Some organisations and academics have stated that there is a minority within the Slavophone community in Greece which self-identifies as ethnic Macedonian.
There is a dispute over the size of this alleged minority, with some Greeks denying it outright, and most ethnic Macedonians inflating the numbers substantially. The Greek Helsinki Monitor reports that, "difficult and therefore risky it is to declare a Macedonian minority identity in such an extremely hostile if not aggressive environment in Greece". There are no official statistics to confirm or deny either claims. The Greek government has thus far refused on the basis that there is no significant such community and that the idea of minority status is not popular amongst the (Greek identifying) linguistic community of northern Greece as it would have the effect of them being marginalised.
Professor Danforth reports:
A political party promoting this line and claiming rights of what they describe as the "Macedonian minority in Greece" — the Rainbow
Rainbow (political party)
The Rainbow is a political party in Greece, and a member of the European Free Alliance. It is known for its activism amongst what it regards as the Ethnic Macedonian minority in Greece and their descendants abroad...
(Виножито) — was founded in September 1998; it received a minimal support of 2,955 votes in the region of Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
in the latest elections (2004).
Macedonian language (modern)
The name of the Macedonian languageMacedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
as used by the people and defined in the constitution of the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
is "Macedonian" (Macedonian
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
: Cyrillic: Mакедонски јазик - Latin
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
: Makedonski jazik). This is also the name used by international bodies, such as the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
and the World Health Organisation. The name is also used by convention in the field of Slavic Studies.
However, for historical reasons, as well as due to the conflict with Greece, several other terms for the language remain in use. Some of the names use the family to which the language belongs to disambiguate it from the undoubtedly non-Slavic and entirely different ancient Macedonian language
Ancient Macedonian language
Ancient Macedonian was the language of the ancient Macedonians. It was spoken in the kingdom of Macedon during the 1st millennium BCE and it belongs to the Indo-European group of languages...
, or from the homonymous dialect of modern Greek; sometimes the autonym "Makedonski" is used in English for the modern Slavic language, with "Macedonian" being reserved for the ancient language.
Affirmation of the separateness of Macedonian as a separate language is an issue of some importance for the ethnic Macedonian self-view. In opposition to this, Bulgarian and Greek critics sometimes continue to insist on treating Macedonian as merely a dialect of Bulgarian, pointing to its close structural affinity, its historically late emergence as a separate standard language, and the political motivation behind its promotion in the mid-20th century.
Macedonian dialect (modern, Greek)
Macedonian is applied to the present-day Greek dialect spoken by Macedonian Greeks.Macedonian (ancient)
The origins of the ancient Macedonian languageAncient Macedonian language
Ancient Macedonian was the language of the ancient Macedonians. It was spoken in the kingdom of Macedon during the 1st millennium BCE and it belongs to the Indo-European group of languages...
are currently debated. It is as yet undetermined whether it was a Greek dialect which was part of or closely related to the Doric
Doric Greek
Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...
and/or Aeolic
Aeolic Greek
Aeolic Greek is a linguistic term used to describe a set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia , Thessaly, and in the Aegean island of Lesbos and the Greek colonies of Asia Minor ....
dialects, a sibling language of ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
forming a Hellenic (i.e. Greco-Macedonian) supergroup, or an Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
language which was a close cousin to Greek and also related to Thracian
Thracian language
The Thracian language was the Indo-European language spoken in ancient times in Southeastern Europe by the Thracians, the northern neighbors of the Ancient Greeks. The Thracian language exhibits satemization: it either belonged to the Satem group of Indo-European languages or it was strongly...
and Phrygian
Phrygian language
The Phrygian language was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, spoken in Asia Minor during Classical Antiquity .Phrygian is considered to have been closely related to Greek....
languages. The scientific community generally agrees that, although some sources are available (e.g. Hesychius'
Hesychius of Alexandria
Hesychius of Alexandria , a grammarian who flourished probably in the 5th century CE, compiled the richest lexicon of unusual and obscure Greek words that has survived...
lexicon, Pella curse tablet) there is no decisive evidence for supporting either hypothesis. Nevertheless, Attic Greek
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
, a form of the Greek language
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, eventually supplanted it entirely in Macedonia from the 5th Century BC, and ancient Macedonian became extinct during the first few centuries AD. Attic Greek evolved into Koine Greek
Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....
and in turn into Byzantine
Medieval Greek
Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, is the stage of the Greek language between the beginning of the Middle Ages around 600 and the Ottoman conquest of the city of Constantinople in 1453. The latter date marked the end of the Middle Ages in Southeast Europe...
and modern Greek
Modern Greek
Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...
.
See also
- Macedonia (region)Macedonia (region)Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...
- Macedonia (terminology)Macedonia (terminology)The name Macedonia is used in a number of competing or overlapping meanings to describe geographical, political and historical areas, languages and peoples in a part of south-eastern Europe. It has been a major source of political controversy since the early 20th century...
- Macedonian Question
- List of homonymous states and regions
- Matthew NimetzMatthew NimetzMatthew Nimetz is an American diplomat.He is the United Nations Special Representative for the naming dispute between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia....
- Mediator - Zoran JolevskiZoran JolevskiH.E. Ph.D. Zoran Jolevski is a Macedonian diplomat and the ambassador of the Republic of Macedonia to the United States of America. In November 2008, he was appointed chief negotiator to the Macedonia naming dispute, and beginning 2011 he was appointed Ambassador to the United Mexican States and...
- Macedonian Negotiator - Adamantios VassilakisAdamantios VassilakisAdamantios Vassilakis , is a distinguished Greek diplomat and negotiator.Adamantios Vassilakis is a graduate of the Commercial High School of Chios, Greece, and holds a Licence in Political and Diplomatic Sciences from the Free University of Brussels....
- Greek Negotiator
Notice: Hyperlinks and emphasis in the quotations appearing in this article were not in the original source being quoted, but are merely used for disambiguation purposes.