After the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991, Greece’s northern neighbor stole the Greek name “Macedonia”—but Athens refused to recognize it, saying it gave legitimacy to territorial, historical, and ethnic claims over the millenial old northern Greek province of Mace-donia. (Its official U.N. name is “the former Yugoslav Republic of Mace-donia.”) The dispute has led Athens to repeatedly block its neighbor’s attempts to join NATO and the E.U., a cause of concern for European leaders who want to strengthen those alliances to limit Russian influence.
Even though the dispute between the two countries is centered on the legal question of the official name of a country, it touches upon emotional issues of history and identity in both countries. For the citizens of what will soon be “North Macedonia,” the term “Macedonia” is a marker of their distinct national identity in the Balkans indeed illogical and unjustifiable. For Greeks
The E.U. has supported the agreement throughout all the stages of its negotiation, signing and ratification. For the E.U., the Prespes deal represents all that is good about multilateralism and the rules-based international order at a time when these values are under attack by nationalism and populism in Europe, and by President Donald Trump and Russia further afield. It clears a stumbling block in its enlargement to the Western Balkans and puts back on track its project of transforming this region by enmeshing it in its institutional and legal order. For the E.U., US and NATO the Prespes agreement then is both a geopolitical victory and a vindication of its vision of how international politics should work.
But there are three major problems with this narrative.
Due political process: The E.U. has chosen to ignore problematic aspects of a ratification process that has challenged constitutional norms and rule of law principles in both FYROM and Greece. Because both Tsipras and FYROM Prime Minister Zoran Zaev have razor-thin majorities in their parliaments, pushing through the deal in both countries has required political bargaining that has pushed the limits of legality and therefor validity.
In FYROM, Zaev, who lacked the two-thirds majority in parliament to change Macedonia’s constitution, used both threats of judicial prosecutions for corruption and a questionable law of partial amnesty to induce opposition lawmakers to vote for his constitutional amendments. Opposition MPs in Skopje were reportedly under im-mense pressure by both supporters and opponents of Prespes, including foreign governments, to vote accordingly. Each side has accused the other of threatening physical violence or promising bribes.
In Athens, the situation is even more convoluted. Tsipras’s government survived the vote of no confidence in order to ratify Prespes, but its minuscule majority relies on some opponents of the deal, who were lured with the promise of government jobs. Instead, Tsipras has ratified the agreement this week by peeling off MPs from smaller opposition parties, potentially to be rewarded with inclusion in the electoral lists of his party in forthcoming elections. Tsipras has already been accused by the opposition in recent months for undue meddling in the judiciary, media and the army. Now, his patching up of ad hoc majorities for different votes in parliament has challenged norms of parliamentary and constitutional procedure and contributed to the further mistrust of the political systems by Greek citizens and more.
For the E.U., concerns over rule of law and due political process should be taken seriously—particularly at a time when many of its member-states struggle with authoritarianism and illiberalism. Meanwhile, some Balkan states that the E.U. hopes to welcome one day continue suffer from persistent problems of corruption and strongman politics. In a world defined by the struggle between liberal democracy and populism, process matters as much as content. The process through which Prespes is being ratified is highly questionable and lacking legality..
An unpopular deal: Second, both governments are pushing through Prespes against the wishes of the majority of their countries. In FYROM, the government failed to win a consultative referendum on Prespes in September — a vote that the E.U. has chosen to ignore. In Greece all opinion polling shows a strong majority against the deal.
Protestors have staged massive demonstrations against the deal, in-cluding one on last Sunday that was dispersed forcefully by police and that produced images reminiscent of the darkest days of the Eurozone crisis and the violent anti-austerity demonstrations in Athens. Just a few months before a European Parliament election where populists are expected to score gains, the E.U, Nato and the US seems yet again to be presenting itself as a bureaucracy bent on ignoring regional sensibility and the sovereignty of weaker states.
Reigniting tensions: Finally, even the geopolitical goal of stabilization of the region is endangered by the deal, precisely because the political mix in Greece and FYROM is so volatile. In FYROM the name-change is supported by a coalition of a minority of the dominant Slav ethnic group and ethnic Albanian minority, while it is opposed by the majority of Slavs. In other words, the deal pits a coalition of minorities against a majority of the majority. Such an arrangement is bound to reignite ethnic tensions and increase political polarization in FYROM—the exact opposite of the E.U.’s, and NATO’S intention.
In Greece, on the other hand, Prespes tarnishes public perception of the E.U. and NATO, interrupting a period of slow and painful rehabilitation after the Eurozone crisis of 2010-15. In a country still suffering from the economic crisis and historically and ethnologically justifiably against the Prespes agreement, the reinforcement of the ethnic state, pride and values runs against the E.U.’s interest of multi-minority ( or the attempt toward the dissolution of the ethnic state) state in a Eurozone member-state.
The E.U.’s support for the Prespes agreement flows from admirable ideals of European integration. But it is also another example of a bureaucratized mode of governing that often ignores political realities, ethnic and historical sensibilities. Most of all, it reflects a self-congratulatory attitude that views E.U. and NATO accession and membership as a cure-all for complex ethnic, economic and social problems, but also tolerates bargains with questionable national elites and turns a blind eye to their methods as long as they achieve pro-E.U., US and NATO results on the ground. At a time of serious problems with the rule of law in some E.U. member-states and popular upheaval in others, such an approach to Europe’s problems is short-sighted and self-defeating.
