POST-COLD WAR DEVELOPMENTS ON THE MACEDONIAN ISSUE

1993 – UN Security Council resolution 817/1993 (April). The country was admitted to the UN under the provisional name “the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)”, acknowledging that the controversy over the name “needs to be resolved in the interest of maintaining peaceful and good-neighbourly relations in the region”.
Ineffective efforts by the UN mediators and fruitless bilateral negotiations revealed that beneath the surface of the state name issue other problems thrived, namely:
a) territorial claims
b) identity clashes
c) conflicting historical/cultural interpretations,
d) emotional wounds inflicted by the Greek Civil War on both sides.

1994 – An embargo, concerning fuel imported to Skopje through the harbor of Salonika, was imposed on FYROM by Greece.
1995 (April) – In 1995 the “Interim Accord” was agreed on between Athens – Skopje which would assist in resolving the issue of the name.
Despite the fact that Greece extended a generous helping hand to the Macedoslavs (economic, political, diplomatic and even military - when the uprising of the Albanians of Skopje occurred in 2001) during a 10-15 year duration of the Interim Accord, Skopje failed to contribute in finding a mutually acceptable solution.

All the proposals by Greece and the UN mediator to find a compromise solution failed as Skopje responded with evasive tactics. They aimed to gain time in order to silently bypass the UN procedure to negotiate with individual countries the recognition of its constitutional name “Republic of Macedonia”. Their position towards the various proposals was “we do not change our constitutional name; we would only negotiate a second name to be used by Greece alone”.

2004 – The new Greek Government under K. Karamanlis, bypassing the ‘maximal’ Greek position (which objected to any use of the Macedonian name by Skopje), indicated its willingness to agree to a compound name. Unexpectedly though the second-term Bush Administration, bypassing Athens, officially endorsed the name “Republic of Macedonia” for its bilateral relations with Skopje. So the ‘carrot’ tactic of Greece (economic, political and even military support) to encourage Skopje to agree in a compromise solution did not gain any ground.

2007- The national elections in Skopje brought to power the right wing party of VMRO-DPMNE under Nikolas Gruevski, who had campaigned on an extreme nationalist platform. Then, this rhetoric turned into official policy of the new government. To the astonishment of foreign observers and in violation of the Interim Accord which discouraged such provocations, airports, stadiums, city streets, and main highways, were re-named after figures of the Greek Macedonian pantheon. Public squares and buildings of certain cities were adorned with statues of Alexander the Great and his father Phillip II. Also, the government literature and textbooks popularised the new ethno-genetic dogma of the Macedoslavs, tracing it back to classical times. Meanwhile apart from the nationalist propaganda, the Gruevski government put an end to any compromise formulas (Gornamakedonja, Northern Macedonia and other) presented during the ongoing Nimetz negotiations.

2008 (April) – In the NATO Summit in Bucharest a unanimous communiqué (in the presence of President Bush) stipulated that an invitation to Skopje “will be extended as soon as a mutually acceptable solution to the name issue has been reached”. The Greek proposition was “Republic of Northern Macedonia” (geographic designation) ‘erga omnes’ (by all and for all purposes). The Gruevski government, accusing Greece of their failure to enter NATO, lodged a complaint against Greece in the European court of Hague.

2009-2010- The new Greek government of George Papandreou insist in the last proposal of Greece: composite name with geographic designation: Republic of Northern Macedonia ‘erga omnes’.