It has been yet another difficult month for Greece’s struggling government, but it has kept itself well afloat thanks largely to some moderate successes on the increasingly complicated issue of Yugoslav ‘Macedonia’.
Prime Minister Mitsotakis, however, suffered another domestic setback with the resignation of Athanasios Kanellopoulos, his Deputy Prime Minister who had made the tactical mistake of criticizing his leader’s vascillating economic policies. Kanellopoulos has now joined Miltiades Evert, the other disaffected runner-up to the party leadership who was also forced to resign three months ago. Together they create quite a powerful ‘alternative leadership’ to Mr Mitsotakis within the party.
Amidst all this party infighting, social unrest and strikes have continued as the government is compelled to forge ahead with even stricter austerity measures to meet terms imposed by the European Community. These are a precondition for catching up and participating fully in the process of European unification. Social unrest over the poor state of the economy has persisted and will continue for months, if not years to come, offering the government little respite after its long tussle with the opposition socialists over the alleged financial corruption of the Papandreou government. (The Koskotas scandal has finally been put to sleep, whatever its dreams may be like).
As with any country faced with pressing domestic problems, those on its borders, spiced with a dash of nationalism, often come as a panacea and divert attention. Greece, of course, could never remotely be accused of any hand in the international demise of communism, the ensuing new wave of nationalism welling up in its place, the break-up of Yugoslavia and the subsequent question of international recognition for Yugoslavia’s southernmost republic of ‘Macedonia’.
Yet it is the Macedonian issue, however troublesome, that has come to unite the public and the country’s warring political parties. Tellingly, during a unique (at least for Greece) summit meeting of all party leaders chaired by President Karamanlis late in February, the politicians expressed unanimity on only one issue – that of ‘Macedonia’.
What is this spectre that has stalked out from the shadows of Greek and Balkan history, sending out omens of war and shivers down the spines of Greeks while at the same time uniting them? The government’s position is not easy to describe, but one that Greece’s European partners are gradually beginning to understand.
Greece has been the only European country opposed to the break-up of Yugoslavia, fearing that the ‘freedom’ and independence of its republics is too high a price to pay for the nationalist tensions and possible wars it could unleash. But once this process leading towards independence and fragmentation became inevitable, Greece turned its attention to the consequences on its immediate borders. Despite EC tendencies to the contrary, it allied itself diplomatically with Serbia and strongly opposed EC recognition of breakaway Yugoslav republics, and especially of ‘Macedonia’, as independent states. It also opposes any developments that strengthen Turkey’s influence, especially through the large Moslem minorities in neighboring Balkan countries. Encirclement by the so-called ‘Moslem arc’ is Greece’s nightmare.
On the issue of Macedonia, the Greek government has insisted – and the EC agreed last December and then again in mid-February – that the Community should grant recognition to this republic, only if three conditions are met. One is that the republic’s constitution must not contain any terms that could imply threats against a neighboring state. Secondly, it is obliged to stop hostile propaganda against third states. Lastly, it cannot use a name that implies territorial claims against a neighboring EC-member state – meaning, of course, Greece.
Greece claims that the use of the name ‘Macedonia’ by the neighboring republic entails territorial claims against its northern region, which is also called Macedonia. Athens maintains that Yugoslav ‘Macedonia’ is a totally artificial national entity set up in 1944 by Tito. A Croat, Tito created ‘Macedonia’ by slicing off a part of southern Serbia, a move designed to limit the size and predominance of Serbia within the newly forged Yugoslav federation.
Furthermore, Athens points out that this Yugoslav republic was set up and named Macedonia in August 1944 at a time when Greece was still under Nazi occupation and unable to object. Furthermore, that with Stalin’s agreement it was used as a means of exercising territorial pressure on Greece, struggling to keep within the Free World. Finally, Athens can prove that Yugoslav ‘Macedonia’ was used as the military base and training ground for Greek communist partisans in their attempt to seize power by force during the 1945-49 civil war, one eventually defeated by the Greek national army, first with British and then with American support.
Greek Foreign Minister Antonis Samaras stated in a letter to his 11 EC counterparts last January that the recognition of the southernmost Yugoslav province as an independent ‘Republic of Macedonia’, would constitute a constant threat to peace and security in southeast Europe, not only today but also in the future.
Mr Samaras also noted that Skopje, the republic’s capital, has not desisted from referring to Greek Macedonia as ‘Macedonia of the Aegean’ (Egeska Macedonija), a term which clearly intimates that the whole of northern Greece is part of a broader Slavic entity. Greece has exposed Yugoslav Macedonian territorial ambitions on northern Greece which have also been proved by the recent circulation of trial banknotes by Skopje, with graphics which strongly imply that the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki is destined to become the capital of a new republic within whose borders a big chunk of present-day Greece will be gobbled up. The Greek government has also contemptuously dismissed allegations by Skopje that a sizable Slavic minority lives in northern Greece.
Political and military considerations aside, historical and cultural arguments, largely emotional, have also come into play. Greece considers the name Macedonia purely Greek and sees its use as a violation of its heritage. A giant rally of half a million people converging on Thessaloniki pressed this point home on 14 February, only a few days before the EC Foreign Ministers convened in Lisbon to decide on the issue. Not surprisingly, under Greek pressure, the EC again decided to postpone the question of recognition until March.
As Greeks are tireless to point out, the great Hellenistic empires all founded by Macedonian generals of Alexander the Great were culturally Greek and Aristotle, often described as “the father of western civilization” for the overwhelming influence of his ideas throughout the Middle Ages, was also Greek and Alexander’s tutor.
The government has also strongly protested the recognition of Macedonia by its two neighboring states, Bulgaria and Turkey. Athens claims that in Bulgaria’s case this was done purely for reasons of domestic political expediency on the eve of the January general elections there. This was done to satisfy the large Slavic populations within Bulgaria and to increase its influence within ‘Macedonia’, so as to ultimately facilitate Sofia’s alleged plans to absorb part of the new republic. Recognition by Turkey on the other hand, says Athens, was decided upon purely to spite its historic Greek rivals and increase its influence over the large Moslem minority there.
Greece has gone so far as to threaten an economic blockade of Yugoslav ‘Macedonia’ if it persists in its territorial claims and use of the name, and has pledged to do everything possible to block the development of its relations with the European Community. Though Greece is seriously harmed financially by the closure of its borders and Macedonia, through which more than half of Greece’s overland trade with Europe is conducted, it is forging ahead with the development of new land and sea routes.
In a burst of nationalism, Greece has re-baptised its northern airports and several warships, giving them names like Alexander the Great, Philip of Macedon and Aristotle. Late in February, it staged map military exercises codenamed ‘Alexander the Great’.
The southernmost Yugoslav republic, on the other hand, presents an elaborate and unconvincing historic explanation as to its origins, insists that it has no territorial claims on Greece and that it has the right to give itself the name it chooses.
The EC seems reluctant to enter into the dialectics of the two sides’ arguments. But, for the time being,, Brussels is tolerating Athens’ positions, at least for the sake of Community solidarity.
Matters appear worst in ‘Macedonia’ itself. The Community’s persistent postponement in recognizing it unless Greek preconditions are met, now appears to be sapping Slavic resistance. The small republic’s dire economic plight cannot be fed with nationalism much longer. President Gligorov is coming under increasing criticism from his domestic opponents, and the most nationalist party only a few days ago expressed a fear that soon might become an inevitable reality: that if the republic fails to stand internationally with the name of Macedonia, it will be split into three parts that will be absorbed by its corresponding neighbors in accordance with its ethnic make-up: namely, Bulgaria, Albania and Serbia.
Greece, though not an immediate beneficiary territorially, would presumably have no objection to such a carve-up and the subsequent extinction of the ‘Macedonian problem’.
