Solving the name issue with bad habits from the past

Robert Nesimi

Last week Macedonia once more proved that it is not a normal country that knows how to solve its problems institutionally. On Saturday, with much fanfare, Ivanov, Zaev, Mickovski and Ahmeti, each with his own usual entourage, finally sat together ostensibly to build a consensus around the name issue. As usual, this multi-hour meeting was held and finished without transparency, and without any new important information for the general public. Participants gave some dry bureaucratic statements, each with his own political standing in mind. Practically the whole process passed in secret, far from public eyes and outside institutions.
If the aim of this meeting was to build some sort of consensus for the name issue, we can freely say that it failed; in Macedonian, and not normal political practice in normal countries. What is disputable from the start is the format and participation in this meeting, and to this day no one can explain why it had to have exactly those politicians present.
For example, if the meeting was to be a coordination of the highest state leadership, then it is not at all clear what Mickovski and Ahmeti are doing there, since the first has no official state function and the second is a mere member of Parliament. As statemen only Ivanov and Zaev belonged there, and the third one in the table should have been Talat Xhaferi as Speaker of the highest institution of the country. They could have eventually been joined by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the official state representative for the name issue. In any format the absence of Xhaferi is a cardinal mistake and represents a total degradation of the institution Speaker of Parliament. His absence speaks volumes about the fact that this “consensus” meeting was completely non-institutional and of a different nature.
Alternatively we could say that it was not a meeting of the state leadership, as much as it was a meeting of the highest representatives of the people. This could justify the presence of Mickovski and Ahmeti as leaders of two big political parties, but even this format is dubious. In this case it is not clear what Ivanov is doing there (while it justifies Xhaferi’s absence), but the bigger problem is the absence of any Albanian opposition representatives. It thus seems that a consensus means gathering together about 99% of Macedonians and only 40% of Albanians, completely ignoring the 130.000 Albanians that voted for other parties. The wish to have DUI and Ahmeti as sole representatives of Albanians who never say “no” is understandable, but this ignores the simple fact that DUI got less than 40% of Albanian votes in the last elections and it cannot claim to be the exclusive voice of Albanians. And as long as they are left out of the process, Albanian opposition parties together with the majority of Albanians have no obligation to defend the state positions versus Greece. For better or worse, the blame rests with the organizers of such meetings.
Of course we would not have problems and dilemmas of this kind if Macedonia knew how to do things institutionally. On paper at least, there is an institution that is the highest organ of the state, and it is the place where debates should take place and consensuses built on these types of issues. That institution is the Parliament of the Republic of Macedonia. Beside the Speaker there are representatives of Albanian opposition parties and other ethnicities, as well as all kinds of social groups. In a normal country the President, Prime Minister or any other statesmen would refer in Parliament and not in round tables. There he could ask for support, would hear comments and reactions, get feedback and understand where the red lines lay in negotiations with Greece. That type of session would be the most legitimate possible and would leave no room for anyone to claim that they are not informed or have not had the chance to speak. A consensus in the deepest meaning of the word could have been built only in Parliament, and it would be the strongest guarantee that any deal with Greece would have the necessary votes to pass.
In Macedonia, however, things are done differently; not in institutions but in “leader meetings”, such as the one on Saturday. So four or five men will sit at a table, and in a secret, nontransparent manner decide crucial things about state and society, with nothing coming through from the outside. By this logic each of these men controls a herd of members of Parliament, that will vote anything they are told. In this value system the Parliament ceases to be an institution where decisions are made, and becomes a place which stamps decisions made at other venues. This time around the damage is even worse, since this meeting totally degraded the institution Speaker of Parliament, who was treated as just another member of the herd whose presence is superfluous since he will do what Ali tells him anyway.
And so this Saturday meeting sent the signal that the consensus for the name issue means that this problem will be solved with the bad habits of the past, through “leader meetings”. Judging by the meager returns of these meetings from the past, it seems that this issue won’t end well too.