The Role of the European Union in the Name Dispute between Greece and FYR Macedonia

Abstract

For more than a decade Greece and FYR Macedonia have been in dispute for the use of the name Macedonia. A dispute that, as this article indicates, it has historical, normative and politico-economic aspects. It is also an issue that threatens the European Union (EU) policy in the region of western Balkans. Furthermore, during the period of this dispute, both sides have tried to use the EU for their own means and the EU itself has managed to gain an important influence in both sides. However, this influence has failed to materialise into a final solution. Hence, this article tries to explore the possible reasons of this failure and to depict those aspects of EU policy-making that hinder the EU efficiency in such kind of problems.

Keywords:

• European Union
• Macedonia
• Greece
• enlargement
• FYROM

Notes

¹ The term Macedonia has geographical meaning.

² The EU recognised the country in 1994.

³ The Vergina star was the crest of the Macedonian kings, adopted by King Phillip II.

⁴ Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians are officially part of Christian Orthodox church.

⁵ This prospect became a national doctrine with the name Megali idea (Great Idea) that led to the defeat of 1922.

⁶ This fear has reappeared recently, when the Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Erdogan, exploited the latest Greek–Macedonian disputes to establish closer ties with FYROM (Elefterotipia, 2007).

⁷ Greece is one of the main destinations for Albanian labour.

⁸ The problem is so severe that the EU has developed special programmes for the combating of organised crime in the region.

⁹ Similar statements had been made in a previous meeting of Mr Rehn with Macedonian officials on 15 October 2005.