EU and the current political crisis in Macedonia
On 30th March 2015, Institute for European policy organized the round table “EU and the current political crisis in Macedonia – leverage, involvement and perspectives”. The round table was attended by representatives from state institutions, political parties, the diplomatic corps, academia, civil society sector and experts.
Malinka Ristevska Jordanova, director of EPI, welcomed the participants with explanation that this round table is not a desperate call for someone else to solve the current political crisis, but an initiative to open discussion different from what we are used to – a discussion for dialogue, options, vision and expectations.
Florian Bieber, director of the Center for South-East European Studies at University of Graz, emphasized that the engagement of several MPs will not resolve the current political crisis in Macedonia and EU needs to consider a wider engagement. In his opinion, this crisis is caused by a lack of interest of EU in the enlargement. But, in the same time, he finds that with time it is clear that there is an absence of reforms in Macedonia and the country has problems with the democracy. Bieber emphasized that “I don’t want to claim that the actual crisis is product of EU, but EU is as much part of the problem as it is of the solution of the crisis in Macedonia and the reasons why Macedonia is in such crisis, so EU should therefore be properly engaged.”
Deputy Prime Minister of the Government for European affairs, Fatmir Besimi, warned about the possibility of revocation the Recommendation to start the accession negotiations with EU. He called on the political parties to give their best at the meetings in Brussels in order to establish a political dialogue in Macedonia.
Stevo Pendarovski stated that this crisis is the biggest in Macedonian history since the independence and noted that the political resolution should come before any legal or institutional solution. Pendarovski believes that the negotiations which took place in Brussels are going to be much harder than 2001, because Europe will have problems to manage the process due to its specifics.
Nikola Dimitrov, former Ambassador of Macedonia to the USA and the Netherlands and former Special Envoy in the name dispute, said that EU has moral responsibility for engagement in the situation. He assessed the meeting in Brussels as a test for EU to see where we can go from here and in his opinion there will not be a new recommendation for opening of the accession talks if the crisis continues. Dimitrov emphasized that it was not correct to keep the country with closed door because of the Greek veto; and therefore, it is not correct to pretend that this crisis can be solved with a political compromise, and to call on independent investigation and process when institutions are under political control.
Ernesto Massimino Bellelli, Ambassador of Italy to Macedonia, said that EU has all the interest to follow the situation and willingness to help, but the needed elements for this engagement to be effective do not exist at the moment. The initiative to solve the crisis must come from the inside political elites in Macedonia before EU engagement in resolving the political crisis.
Mersel Bilali, professor at FON University, assessed that the situation at this moment is completely chaotic and primarily the main political actors should have an idea how to approach the crisis, instead of only thinking about what should be done. Regarding the meeting in Brussels, he added that this is just a start of the negotiations and might serve as preparing the public for one possible solution. He also emphasized that the dialogue will be extremely difficult because it is hard to negotiate with dictators.
