God bless you, Mr. Carl Bildt


Erol Rizaov

I think it will require some heavy lifting by heavy EU states and institutions to get a Macedonia name compromise. But without one the EU Balkan strategy risks collapse.”

This is what Carl Bildt, an established European politician, vice-president of the European Council for foreign policy and former minister of foreign affairs in Sweden, wrote and concluded. God bless you, Mr. Bildt. It’s not as if we don’t already know and write this, as well as propose and demand ever since the name dispute was imposed, but when someone from Europe “discovers” the same, even though it is decades later, gives hope that maybe there are people in the administration in Brussels who admit that this issue with Macedonia’s name cannot be done by Brussels alone, and that there should be stronger involvement of the governments and high officials from Germany, France, England even after Brexit, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain etc. The old Europe, as we like to call it. And not just political leaders, but involvement from the strong European institutions, as Bildt assessed, that need to be involved impartially for this hard stain could be finally removed, and which has become an irresponsible blocking of the European Balkan strategy.

When one member violates the strategy and the interests of the entire EU, then it is inevitable to take matters both personally and institutionally into the hands of people, who in both situations have authority and power, but also mechanisms to find compromise solutions that will not harm the existing member, nor future one. With such a stronger involvement of the powerful EU member states, which will not miss America’s role, given NATO’s latest geostrategic interests in the Balkans, it is close to mind that it is possible to find an acceptable solution for both Macedonia and Greece. In Carl Bildt’s message, the most specific words are: “it will require some heavy lifting by heavy EU states and institutions to get a Macedonia name compromise. But without one the EU Balkan strategy risks collapse”. Wow.

The surprise, at least for me, is not at all because of Bildt’s calling on the powerful states, leaders and institutions, but in the indirect acknowledgment that the present angsts of people and institutions that can do work were not strong enough and in other words sufficiently committed to the problem of which faces the Republic of Macedonia with the blockade of its Euro-Atlantic aspirations, that is, its future of an EU member state. It is known that the French predecessors, Mitterrand, Chirac and Sarkozy, made attempts to solve this absurd problem. Angela Merkel and her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder several times announced a personal engagement to find an acceptable solution. US President George W. Bush even publicly announced Macedonia’s admission to NATO in 2008. Because of that, he became the first US President to receive a strong slap in the face in Bucharest, not only from Greece, but also from the EU and from NATO’s senior political echelons that have torn off his public announcement that Macedonia, along with Croatia are the next members of the NATO Alliance. To this day, the public in Macedonia does not know what really happened in Bucharest, how Bush turned out to be so humiliated. There was speculation that Bush has put on a show when the Greek and EU allegedly humiliated him, in which it is difficult to believe that such a thing will be accepted by an American president, such an embarrassment not only for him but also for America. Strange, but to this day no one asked George W. Bush what was the deal with Macedonia in Bucharest.

Angela Merkel was the one who went the farthest in her mission, and who announced, just as Carl Bildt demands today, a stronger engagement from Germany to resolve the imposed dispute. The announcement was a typical German one – strict and precise. The end was a typical Balkan one – entangled. Merkel, after several attempts, gave up on the Balkan liars who, when they lie, think that they have fooled anyone who wanted to help resolve the absurd dispute. When the most powerful woman in the world burned her fingers from the hot chestnuts they put on fire but covered them with ashes, Prime Ministers Gruevski and Karamanlis said that Merkel shouted “I will never work on “Mazedonische Zustände”, the famous saying in Germany translated as “Macedonian conditions”, from the times of the conspiratorial actions of VMRO and mutual assassinations in the streets of European cities in the last century. It actually means tangled and unsolvable conditions, typical Balkanism. Obviously, after being lied to several times, Chancellor Merkel, except as pure courtesy, never mentioned this dispute again, leaving it to Athens and Skopje, which was more welcomed by Greece, but also to the then government in Macedonia.

We will soon find out if Carl Bildt’s Twitter message is just a personal matter, or it is preparing a ground for greater participation of the international community. We will find out, if it is some sort of already developed strategy of the powerful EU and US states to finally seal the deal due to strategic interests that are fast-moving towards the Balkans. If one stands on the name Republic of Macedonia, with one of the five proposed and acceptable geographical and temporal additions from Nimetz: New, Upper, Northern, Vardar, Republic of Macedonia (Skopje) all this erga omnes, but without changing the Constitution and the spelling, and without other conditions, problematizing sensitive identity issues such as nationality and language, symbols and personal documents, there is a chance for it to be over.

Greece will be able to say that it managed to mark the difference between Greek Macedonia and the neighboring country with a time, territorial clear distance. And the Republic of Macedonia can be satisfied with the realization of its strategic interests as a member of NATO and the EU and by preserving the name, dignity and identity and overcoming the danger to the survival of the state. It would be historic stepping-ups in which we want to believe more than they are realistically possible without a stronger participation of powerful EU member states and the USA.