Macedonia & Greece: Name Issue

[Gocka]

Macedonia never really had a vibrant conservative wing. In the revolutionary periods the nationalist were firmly leftists. The right wing revolutionaries tended to lean towards Bulgaria if no being total Bugaromani.

That leftist nationalist tradition was first ruined by communism. Then today to be left leaning is completely incomparable to what it was even a 100 years before that. We don't have a real political right, and these yuppy Neo liberals are the furthest thing from nationalists you could imagine.

In our times nationalism is a firmly right leaning ideology, and Macedonia doesn't have that. What we have is a traditional communist left, a modern far left, and a centrists globalist supposed right.

Lets put it into context. Stojan Angelov, supposed hard liner, is throwing his weight behind Zaev, go figure.

Originally Posted by Pelagonija

How did the FYROMERS get it so wrong in a time when nationalism is on the rise in Europe? They stuck it out for 27 years, then all the sudden they sold their soul and become liberal loving lesbians when everyone is walking right...

All this for what? So we can join NATO in order to support ISIS and Al Queda and blow up a few more Arab children in the process just so that a few billionaires in the states can make more money.

[Carlin]

MIA news agency on Friday changed comments attributed to Prime Minister Zoran Zaev after an intervention by Athens.

In an interview with MIA in Washington, Zaev reportedly said: “The northern part of Greece is Greece, the western part of Bulgaria is Bulgaria. This is our Macedonia and there will not be another one in the world,” MIA initially reported him as saying. However, MIA later completely changed the quote.

The revised quote read: “We all know that today a part of the geopolitical region of Macedonia is in Greece, a part is in Bulgaria, and the northern part is in our country. And no one will ever try to deny our Macedonia. The adjective ‘North’ makes a distinction and we reaffirm that there are regions in Bulgaria and in Greece which are called Macedonia.”

In Greece, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his junior coalition partner Panos Kammenos appeared to have buried the hatchet, at least for now, after recent tension between the two men over the name deal.

Tsipras and Kammenos met on Friday in a bid to iron out their differences and, according to government sources, they agreed that the issue should not be allowed to disrupt political unity and stability as the country emerges from eight years of bailout agreements. The same sources said the two agreed to readdress the issue in March.

Ahead of the referendum on the name deal with Greece, meanwhile, opposition VMRO party hinted on Friday that it could back the changes in the country’s constitution.

The party’s leader Hristijan Mickoski said he is still against a revision of the constitution as stipulated in the so-called Prespes agreement, but added that if the majority of citizens approve it then “we will respect this decision” – as long as more than 50 percent participate in the referendum and the result is a “yes” vote. Mickoski also said he is sticking to the party decision not to tell its supporters what to vote for in the referendum.

URL:
http://www.ekathimerini.com/232854/a...m-pm-retracted

[JPMKD]

Interesting. Why has this all been so predictable? I recall not really paying a lot of attention to the wiretapping and all. But the more you peel the onion the silllier it gets. There's no way they start EU talks next June not even if this all passes with a sizable margin and the changes are made. The way I read things Macedonia could change it's constitution and Greece could still reject the deal.
The MIA quotes are oddly worded in that both can be twisted to to a case for either party. Or am I seeing that wrong?

[Tomche Makedonche]

For all you French lovers...

http://www.ekathimerini.com/232865/a...nd-north-korea

French ambassador to Macedonia says ‘choice is between North Macedonia and North Korea’

French Ambassador to the Republic of Macedonia Christian Thimonier has urged the people of the Balkan country to approve the name change deal in the September 30 referendum, saying that “the choice is between North Macedonia and North Korea.”

“I've been talking with Macedonians and I know this is not easy but they should all think about the next generations. Maybe [I am being] too straightforward but I'll tell you: The choice is between North Macedonia and North Korea. You should know what to choose,” Thimonier said during a debate on Friday, according to a report by Macedonia’s state-run MIA news agency.

“I believe Macedonians are able to make sacrifices and now they have a real opportunity… to demonstrate that,” he was quoted as saying.

Speaking at the same debate, French diplomat Alain Le Roy said that although the agreement signed with Greece in June was “not perfect,” there was nevertheless “unanimous support” for the deal.

Le Roy said that French President Emmanuel Macron was on Saturday expected to support the name deal in a recorded video message.

[Tomche Makedonche]

The Following article contains some interesting statements

https://www.rferl.org/a/there-s-no-d.../29503734.html

There's No Disputing That Macedonia Is At A Watershed Moment

Macedonia's capital, Skopje, has been gripped by hope and uncertainty lately, with the country approaching a historic crossroads.

Macedonians vote in a referendum on September 30 on whether to change the country’s name to the Republic of North Macedonia, a possible step toward resolving a decades-old dispute with Greece, which has a province by the same name and has used the dispute as an obstacle to EU or NATO entry for its postcommunist neighbor.

A breakthrough agreement between Skopje and Athens, reached in June, hangs in the balance.

The carrot, dangled explicitly on the ballot, is the prospect of Euro-Atlantic integration.

The referendum is merely “consultative,” so a "yes" result still must be ratified by a two-thirds parliamentary majority before the country could shed the more cumbersome Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia name adopted as a compromise to join the United Nations in 1993.

The name dispute is highly divisive among Macedonians, prompting organizers to link the question on the ballot to the prospect of membership in the European Union and NATO in hopes of boosting the "yes" turnout.

But it is nearly as contentious internationally, with accusations and counteraccusations of improper meddling in Macedonia's affairs.

European leaders have visited the country in the weeks leading up to the vote to urge Macedonians to seize a "once in a lifetime" opportunity.

Russia is said to be wary of further Balkan countries joining NATO, particularly since nearby Montenegro recently joined the transatlantic military alliance.

Russian Ambassador to Macedonia Oleg Shcherbak was quick to accuse the West of applying “very strong media and psychological pressure” on Macedonian voters. Shcherbak said nothing of the anti-referendum Internet trolls that are said to be urging Macedonians to boycott the vote.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, on his way to Skopje to urge a "yes" vote, accused Russia of financing “influence campaigns” to undermine the referendum.

Some of the unsupported claims that are circulating in apparent support of a "no" vote include speculation that Google would drop the use of the Macedonian language if the name change is approved.

The "no" lobby -- some of it anonymous via social media or shadowy websites -- appears to be banking on a boycott, which could render the result meaningless (it requires more than half of the country's roughly 1.8 million eligible voters to turn out) or simply create space for political elements to exploit.

The New York Times reported that new posts are popping up daily on Facebook to encourage people to boycott the referendum in a "disinformation-age battle."

Meanwhile, the nationalist opposition party, VMRO-DPMNE, has called on its supporters to boycott the vote.

Others have pointed out that refusing to vote might be counterproductive.

“The boycott only means that you leave others to make the decision for you,” the president of the National Youth Council of Macedonia, Blazen Maleski, wrote on RFE/RL’s youth online column. ​

Two young pro-government activists addressed passersby at the entrance to Skopje's old town on September 16, with one of them at one point explaining his trust in the prime minister, Social Democratic Union leader Zoran Zaev.

“He didn't enter politics to get rich," he said. "He was already wealthy, as he was a part of a very successful family business. His family produces the best ajvar" -- a traditional vegetable spread based on peppers and eggplant -- "and he grew up selling papers at the market.”

They said their enthusiasm for the name change was not shared by their parents, who they predicted would nevertheless reluctantly vote “yes.”

“They are not happy to be in this situation. They are attached to the name Macedonia," one said. "Their ID card would say that they are from the Republic of North Macedonia, and that sounds strange to them. They are likely to vote ‘yes’ because of us, as our future is at stake.”

Of course, negotiations with Greece will continue in the event of a “yes” vote, and Macedonia may have to make more concessions.

“The outcome of this process depends...on the negotiating and political power of the countries themselves,” academic Taki Fiti, president of the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences (MANU), told RFE/RL’s Macedonian unit. "Greece has much greater negotiating power."

For many outsiders, it might be hard to understand why the addition of a simple geographic prefix (North) to a country’s name would be so problematic.

Skopje is flooded with referendum posters urging people to vote for the name change and “a European future,” but some Macedonians object to what they regard as the flip side of that coin.

“Europe wants to take away all that we have. They want to take away our name. I was born a Macedonian, and I want to die a Macedonian," Zoran Stojcevski, a Skopje cab driver in his 60s, told RFE/RL recently. "They want to erase our name. They want to ‘civilize’ us. I don't want to be civilized! I just want to stay the way I am, and they can call me primitive if they want. This government is worse than a communist government. They put people in prison if they are against the referendum.”

There has been no evidence of such cases, but the identity fears are real.

Zana, a woman in her 50s, offered a glimpse of that fear while giving a tour of Skopje this month to her British friends.

“It’s not only about the name, they want to take our past away from us," she said. "They want to say that we [Macedonians] were not there [at the time of Alexander the Great]. They are taking away our identity.”

Some things will certainly change if the “yes” vote decisively prevails in the referendum.

The currently nameless equestrian statue in Skopje’s central square has been one of the symbolic battlefields in the dispute with Greece. It was erected as a monument to Alexander the Great -- known in some quarters as Alexander of Macedon -- but many Greeks have sought to discourage Macedonians from considering Alexander to be part of their culture.

If the country’s name change is ultimately approved by both sides, the horseman will once again bear the name of Alexander but with an explanatory plaque that the ancient king is part of “Hellenic” culture.

It is one reflection of the awkward compromises that might be required of Macedonia, in particular.

But for many, that is a small price to pay, given the stakes.

“The name-change deal with Greece must not fail because that would mean a very uncertain future for Macedonia,” former Foreign Minister Professor Denko Maleski told RFE/RL’s Macedonian unit. ​

The failure of the referendum, among other things, would likely deepen divisions in Macedonian society, with many in its ethnic Albanian community -- around one-quarter of the country’s population of 2 million -- enthusiastically in favor of the name change and Western integration.

“The ensuing division [would] closely resemble the Ukrainian situation, which [would] destabilize the country,” Maleski said.

There is notable support for the “yes” vote within the Macedonian Orthodox Church.

Bishop Pimen, who is widely regarded as a “new wave” priest, said the September 30 that the referendum was a great opportunity.

“We are deciding the future of our country, and we must all hold hands, to overcome our differences and quarrels, and come together to choose a European future for our country. This is a historic opportunity that we must not miss,” Pimen said.

His message incurred an avalanche of insults and hate speech on social media, prompting Pimen to respond that people were free to disagree with him but that he did not approve of the way in which some were expressing their views.

“In Macedonia, we need to learn basic manners first, and only then should we have democracy,” he said.

[Risto the Great]

This is all so absurd. I'm so embarrassed to be macedonian.

[vicsinad]

Manners first and then democracy. I'm not coming from a religious point of view perhaps as this priest is, but what an idiot. Is that how you justify telling people to vote yes?

[vicsinad]

Originally Posted by Risto the Great

This is all so absurd. I'm so embarrassed to be macedonian.

As am I. I was one of those who thought that having Zaev screw things up would build a stronger sense of Macedonianism. Is there even such a thing any more?

[Tomche Makedonche]

Of course, negotiations with Greece will continue in the event of a “yes” vote, and Macedonia may have to make more concessions.

This is the first time I've seen this publicly stated anywhere, it basically means that the show isn't over, even after implementing the Prespa Agreement

[vicsinad]

Originally Posted by Tomche Makedonche

This is the first time I've seen this publicly stated anywhere, it basically means that the show isn't over, even after implementing the Prespa Agreement

Even for losers of wars there hasn't been such a lopsided and one-sided agreement. We are truly pathetic.