Macedonia - Psywar in EU and possible new Proxy in Balkans

No news is the PsyWar scenario of nowadays, and it is higher elevated when it's inside a hybrid scenario. Macedonia is one of the cradle of the Psychological Warfare, since the Atila, the Scourge of God, the Hun, Alexander of Macedonia, from Hannibal to Gengis Khan, Rodhesia to Vietnam, from Operation Desert Fox to Operation Vigilante Resolve, from Apocalypse Now to MK-Ultra, Operation Gladio to Wagner Group, well, there is a long range of use of Psychological Warfare and Macedonia is in the middle of a scenario, very strategic to the east and west, and its government is not really a great hopeful to the country.

Macedonia recently agreed to new name after 27 years of dispute against Greece for the name, from remotely from teh Greece Empire, now the Republic of the North Macedonia, declaring peace between two nations. After many mediations, two Balkans countries announced that end the clash between them over what call the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

This don't make a clear distinction between Greek Macedonia, the Great Empire of Alexander and the country, but put a decisive end to the clash and the dispute for the reconization of the name, since the former republic seceded from Yugoslavia and declared independence as the Republic of Macedonia. This inflamable fuel lighted fury in Athens, the new Slavic Nation had laied to claim to ancient Greek conquerors and historical figures, as Alexander, the Great and other parts of the Greek historical conquests, that made cradle to the modern history.

Another question is the Russian mischef-making in Balkans, the dispute also had fuelled growing the destabilisation in the region and NATO influence, also the Russian politics into Macedonia borders. The corrupt and weak government in Macedonia, facing the other countries searching to influence Macedonian territory, is now trying to get close to NATO but, not different, the opposition involved in other scandals as psychological warfare, coup d'etat, assassination, traffic of people, etc, had closure to Russian government.

The Russian politics in Balkans were for years financing local groups for insurrections and civil unrest, like the financing of skinhead groups, criminal gangs and extremist nationalists, also financing the ultra leftists communists against the North American politics of USA geopolitical influence in Balkans. For sure not supported the population that wants Macedonia free from the Russian influence in country, and many of them, like Ukraine, don't want the USA influence, making Macedonia autonomous on it's decisions, creating maybe a block in Balkans.

Well, this psychological warfare destabilizates the political influences and political powers in the geographical area, also the corrupt government doesn't support the intern security for the whole problem financed by external agents.

The Greek Empire of Alexander of Macedonia

EU ministers postpone Albania and Macedonia accession decision

The two Balkan countries must make progress on improving the rule of law and fighting organized crime.

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-european-union-ministers-general-affairs-council-postpone-albania-and-macedonia-accession-decision/

LUXEMBOURG — The door to EU membership for Albania and Macedonia remains closed at least until June 2019, but accession is on offer if the countries make progress on reforms, EU ministers decided Tuesday.

During a marathon session of the General Affairs Council, the majority of member countries argued in favor of opening membership talks now but France and Netherlands, with the backing of Denmark, were the main opponents, diplomats said.

The result of all-day discussions was a compromise text where the Council said it agreed to set “out the path towards opening accession negotiations in June 2019.”

However the two countries will have to show progress on making reforms in areas like battling corruption and improving their judicial systems. Those steps will be assessed in a future European Commission report and “depending on progress made” there will be an intergovernmental conference with Albania and Macedonia “by the end of 2019.”

The Commission in April gave its backing to the launch of accession talks and recommended that the Council follow suit, although it too noted some shortfalls in the two countries’ preparations.

The prospects of joining the queue to EU membership opened for Macedonia after it resolved a decades-old dispute about its name with Greece, which had blocked the accession process.

Opening talks would represent a clear indication that the bloc is ready to renew its expansion to the six western Balkan countries.

The language in Tuesday’s declaration allows the pro-EU governments of Macedonia and Albania to tell their citizens that the door to eventual EU membership is open. But for France and the Netherlands, cautious about expanding the EU to new countries, it allows them to say that no final decision has been taken.

The two countries have to show “a track record both in improving the rule of law and fighting organized crime. We’ll look carefully at next year’s Commission report to judge whether we see this progress,” Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok told reporters at the end of the meeting.

Map of Republic of the North Macedonia

Macedonian president refuses to sign 'criminal' law to change country's name

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-macedonia-greece-name/macedonian-president-refuses-to-sign-criminal-law-to-change-countrys-name-idUSKBN1JM0W2

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Macedonia’s President Gjorge Ivanov refused on Tuesday to sign an agreement on changing the country’s name to resolve a dispute with Greece, calling it a “criminal act” that violated the constitution.

This month the foreign ministers of Greece and Macedonia agreed to rename the tiny ex-Yugoslav republic the “Republic of North Macedonia”, resolving a decades-old dispute that had blocked Macedonia’s entry into the EU and NATO.

Macedonia’s parliament ratified the agreement last week. But in a statement quoted by the state-run agency MIA, Ivanov said he had “no mandate to sign the agreement”, which “violated the constitution of Macedonia, and made Macedonia dependent on a third party, i.e. Greece.”

The president’s refusal to sign is unlikely to block the agreement by itself: parliament is expected to override his veto with a simple majority in a second vote.

But Ivanov’s strong words were a sign of the high political stakes in an issue that arouses passion for both Macedonians and Greeks, and could signal difficulty ahead for the government, which must still amend the constitution and has pledged to put the name change to voters in a referendum.

“Implementation of this agreement will have legal implications and therefore it represents a criminal act,” Ivanov said.

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said he will resign if the agreement fails to get support in the promised referendum. “Macedonia has no plan B,” Zaev told 1TV.

Macedonia’s name has led to a dispute with Greece since Macedonia became independent with the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. A Greek province is also called Macedonia, and many Greeks consider the name to be a claim to their territory.

Greece has blocked Macedonia from joining the EU or NATO, and required it to enter the United Nations as “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”.

Nationalists in both Greece and Macedonia remain opposed to the deal, which must also be approved by the Greek parliament.

EU to start membership talks with Macedonia and Albania

https://www.dw.com/en/eu-to-start-membership-talks-with-macedonia-and-albania/a-44409473

The European Union will start accession negotiations with Albania and Macedonia, pending progress towards reforms, EU countries decided on Tuesday.

The deal was confirmed to German news agency DPA by diplomatic sources after talks on Tuesday among the bloc's European affairs ministers. Some member states expressed concerns about corruption and the rule of law in the two EU hopefuls. Others have pushed to bring the six Western Balkan countries into the EU fold to bolster the bloc’s influence in the region. Germany's European affairs minister, Michael Roth, said that Albania and Macedonia have made "remarkable progress in the area of rule of law and the independence of the judiciary."

European Union enlargement

In addition to Albania and Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia all hope to join the EU. So far, formal accession negotiations have only been held with Serbia and Montenegro.

Albania and Macedonia were granted EU candidate status in 2014 and 2005, respectively. If they make sufficient progress towards reforms, the first talks can begin at the end of 2019, the ministers decided. An EU enlargement strategy had previously included a timeline for when these states could join the bloc: 2025.

Reforms

During a visit to the six Western Balkan countries earlier this year, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that before being admitted into the EU fold, the potential member states would need to undertake political reforms, uphold the rule of law, fight corruption, ensure press freedom, stimulate their economies and resolve outstanding conflicts with their neighbors.

To make sure that sufficient progress have been met, EU member states will vote again to endorse the opening of talks next year.

Macedonia agrees to new name after 27-year dispute with Greece

Greek and Macedonian PMs settle on the name Republic of North Macedonia

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/12/macedonia-agrees-to-new-name-after-27-year-dispute-with-greece

It has taken more than 25 years, divided two nations and been cause for protests great and small, but on Tuesday Greece and Macedonia finally declared peace.

After countless rounds of UN-mediated talks, the two Balkan neighbours announced that they had agreed to end the row over what to call the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The tiny state will henceforth be known neither by its acronym, FYROM, nor simply as Macedonia but as the Republic of North Macedonia – a geographical qualifier that ends any fear in Athens of territorial ambition against the neighbouring Greek province of the same name.

“After months of negotiation we have managed to reach a deal that will solve our longstanding difference over the name of our neighbour,” said the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras. “They have agreed to rename their country the Republic of North Macedonia, a change that will apply in their international and bilateral relations and domestically.”

The new name not only made a clear distinction between Greek Macedonia and the country’s northern neighbour, but put a decisive end to the irredentism the country’s erstwhile title had conveyed, he said.

“The deal that we have reached for the first time ensures that they do not have, and in the future can never claim, any relationship to the ancient Greek civilisation of Macedonia. I am deeply convinced that this agreement is a great diplomatic victory, but also a historic opportunity ... a historic moment for the Balkans and our peoples.”

The two neighbours have been at loggerheads ever since the former republic seceded from Yugoslavia and declared independence as the Republic of Macedonia. Fuelling fury in Athens, the new Slavic nation had laid claim to ancient Greek figures, not least the warrior king Alexander the Great.

Tsipras, whose left-led administration came to power in 2015, had made settlement of the issue a priority. Negotiations brokered by the US mediator Matthew Nimetz accelerated this year following the ascent to power of the Social Democrat Zoran Zaev in Skopje.

Zaev told a news conference timed to coincide with Tsipras’ address that the deal preserved the Macedonian ethnic and cultural identity. Both its language and people would continue to be known as Macedonian. The agreement would be put to popular vote in a referendum later this year, he said.

Tsipras and Zaev, both in their early forties with instinctively anti-nationalist reflexes, had long taken a progressive view on a dispute that had not only harmed bilateral ties but also held up Macedonia’s membership of the EU and Nato.

As evidence mounted of Russian mischief-making in the Balkans, the dispute had also fuelled growing fears of destabilisation in the region.

Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, was among the first to welcome what he described as a historic agreement and urged both sides to finalise it.

“This will set Skopje on its path to Nato membership, and it will help to consolidate peace and stability across the wider western Balkans,” he said in a statement.

In what will be seen as a moment of success for Europe, Zaev is expected to present the agreed settlement to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, during talks in Berlin on Wednesday.

The European council president, Donald Tusk, tweeted: “Sincere congratulations to PM @tsipras_eu and PM @Zoran_Zaev. I am keeping my fingers crossed. Thanks to you the impossible is becoming possible.”

The two countries had been in a race to secure a solution before an EU summit in late June. 

For both Tsipras and Zaev it has taken political courage to get this far. The nationalist backlash in both countries is likely to be fierce with opponents already deriding the accord as an act of treachery.

Greece’s main opposition leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, denounced the deal, arguing that it amounted to Athens accepting the existence of a Macedonian language and nation.

Officials on both sides, however, insisted that boldness was required if one of the most obdurate, if abstruse diplomatic rows was to be put to rest. 

Stelios Koulouglou, an MEP with Tsipras’ Syriza party, said: “For far too long Greece had been ridiculed because of this dispute. In the future this will be a lesson in diplomacy in how to avoid turning a minor feud into a major international issue because of nationalism and its poisonous rhetoric.”