Macedonia and the Ohrid Framework Agreement: Framed Past, Elusive Future

Abstract

Macedonia was the only Yugoslavian republic to make a peaceful transition to statehood at the time of the federation’s collapse. Yet tensions between ethnic Macedonians and Albanians over the constitutional design of the state meant it remained vulnerable to violence, to which it succumbed in 2001. Civil war was averted with the signing of the Ohrid Framework Agreement, which promised to distribute power more evenly between the two. This settlement is portrayed in opposing extremes: by Macedonians, as a prelude to the demise of the country; by Albanians and the international community, as a guarantor of its existence. This paper eschews such interpretations. While it remains the best solution for preserving Macedonia’s inter-ethnic equilibrium and facilitating its integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions, the Framework Agreement is not without flaw. Above all, it has marginalised smaller ethnic communities, embedding a de facto bi-national state in which Macedonians and Albanians predominate politically over all others.

Keywords

• Macedonia, Ohrid Framework Agreement, Balkan Wars, conflict resolution, decentralisation.

References

1. 1 Greece objects to Macedonia’s use of cultural symbols and references it considers Greek, including the name ‘Macedonia’, the use of which, it argues, implies territorial pretensions over its northern province of the same name. Resolution of this dispute remains ongoing. For the purpose of brevity, the country will be referred to as ‘Macedonia’ throughout this paper, as opposed to the more cumbersome ‘the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’, as it is known in international fora, pending agreement on a name that satisfies both sides.
2. 2 According to Macedonia’s last national census, staged in 2002, of a population of just over 2 million, ethnic Macedonians account for 65% of the population; Albanians 25%; Turks 3.9%; Roma 2.7%; and Serbs 1.8%; see, International Crisis Group, “Macedonia: Ten Years After the Conflict”, Europe Report No. 212, (August 2011), p.1, n.3, at http://www. crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/europe/balkans/macedonia/212%20Macedonia%20---%20 Ten%20Years%20after%20the%20Conflict.pdf [last visited 29 March 2013].
3. 3 Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 4-5.
4. 4 The full text of the Framework Agreement is available at the Secretariat for Implementation of the Ohrid Framework Agreement, Republic of Macedonia, “Ohrid Framework Agreement”, at http://siofa.gov.mk/mk/dokumente/Ramkoven_dogovor.pdf [last visited 27 July 2012].
5. 5 Sasho Ripiloski, Conflict in Macedonia: Exploring a Paradox in the Former Yugoslavia, Boulder, First Forum Press, 2011, p.116.
6. 6 The Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) and the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Party – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE) on the Macedonian side, and the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA) and the Party for Democratic Prosperity (PDP) on the Albanian side.
7. 7 According to Gallup’s 2008 Balkan Monitor, only 30% of ethnic Macedonians view the OFA as a long-term solution to the country’s ethnic problems; see, Gallup Balkan Monitor, “Insights and Perceptions: Voices of the Balkans- 2008 Analytical Report”, p.10, at http:// www.balkan-monitor.eu/files/BalkanMonitor-2008_Analytical_Report.pdf [last visited 24 September 2012].
8. 8 The term “anti-Ohrid faction” is widely recognised as referring to Macedonia’s prime minister, interior minister and parliamentary president during the 2001 conflict; see, International Crisis Group, “Macedonia’s Name: Why the Dispute Matters and How to Resolve It”, Europe Report No. 122, (December 2001), p. 3, at http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/europe/ Macedonia%2014.pdf [last visited 3 August 12].

9. 9 According to the State Statistical Office, Macedonia’s current rate of unemployment stands at 31.6%; see, State Statistical Office, Republic of Macedonia, “Labour Market”, at http://www. stat.gov.mk/OblastOpsto_en.aspx?id=14 [last visited 15 October 2012].
10. 10 Florian Bieber, “Power-Sharing and the Implementation of the Ohrid Framework Agreement”, Skopje, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Macedonia Office, 2008, pp. 7-8. 11 Ripiloski, Conflict in Macedonia, p. 100.
11. 12 Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, “Macedonia: A Conflict Analysis”, p. 8, at http://www.sida.se/shared/jsp/download.jsp?f=SIDA3044en_MacConfAnaWEB. pdf&a=2899 [last visited 4 November 2011].
12. 13 A total of 15 amendments were made to the constitution.
13. 14 For instance, in March 2002, an international donors’ conference was staged in Brussels, where donors pledged US $515 million to Macedonia to assist with post-conflict reconstruction and economic development; see John Phillips, Macedonia: Warlords and Rebels in the Balkans, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2004, p. 186. Likewise, in November 2004, days before a national referendum on the validity of the Law on Local Self-Government, the United States recognised Macedonia under its constitutional name- a move that was widely acknowledged as being designed to encourage ethnic Macedonians from participating in a vote which, if passed, threatened to reverse post-conflict gains. In the event, voter turnout was well below the 50% threshold for the result to have taken legal force.
14. 15 See “Нов pамковен договор за сопствен рејтинг” (New Framework Agreement For Their Own Rating), Time (Skopje), 12 May 2009.
15. 16 Gallup Balkan Monitor, “Insights and Perceptions: Voices of the Balkans – 2008 Analytical Report”, p. 10.
16. 17 Ohrid Framework Agreement, Section 1.2, Basic Principles.
17. 18 Merle Vetterlein, “The Influence of the Ohrid Framework Agreement on the Educational Policy of the Republic of Macedonia”, paper presented at the 8th Annual Kokkalis Graduate Student Workshop-Kokkalis Program on Southeastern and East-Central Europe, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2-3 February 2006, p. 7.
18. 19 Sally Broughton, Laura Davis and Andrew Loomis, “Politics and Identity in Macedonia: Intrinsic versus Extrinsic Understandings”, paper presented at the conference Macedonia– Macedonias: Changing Contexts in the Changing Balkans, Centre for South-East European Studies- School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, London, 14-16 June 2001, p. 9; cited in Ulf Brunnbauer, “The Implementation of the Ohrid Agreement: Ethnic Macedonian Resentments”, Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe, No. 1 (2002), p. 6.
19. 20 Ohrid Framework Agreement, Section 3.1, Development of Decentralized Government.
20. 21 Ripiloski, Conflict in Macedonia, p. 119.
21. 22 Awa Dabo, Patrick Keuleer, Jago Salmon and Moises Venancio, “Local Governance, Peace Building and State Building in Post-Conflict Settings: A UNDP Discussion Paper”, p. 13, at http://www.uncdf.org/gfld/docs/post-conflict.pdf [last visited 16 September 2012].
22. 23 See the Law on Local Self-Government of the Republic of Macedonia, Article 12 (“Criteria for Formation”) and Article 13 (“Delineation of Territory”) at the Urban Institute, Law on Local Self-Government of the Republic of Macedonia, p. 4, at http://www.urban.org/PDF/ mcd_locgov.pdf [last visited 11 November 2011].
23. 24 Veli Kreci and Bekim Ymeri, “The Impact of Territorial Re-Organisational Policy Interventions in the Republic of Macedonia”, Local Government Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2 (2010), p. 279, Table 2; cited in Tom Vangelovski, “The Framework Agreement in Macedonia: Successful Intervention or Prelude to Conflict?”, in Kirill Nourzhanov (ed.), Two Decades without the Soviet Union: Transformations in Eurasian Space. Proceedings of the 10th Biennial Conference of AACaPS, 3-4 February, 2011, Australasian Association for Communist and Post-Communist Studies and the Australian National University, Canberra, 2011, p. 4.
24. 25 International Crisis Group, Macedonia: Ten Years After the Conflict, p. 19.
25. 26 Ibid, pp.18-19.
26. 27 Dabo et al., “Local Governance, Peace Building and State Building in Post-Conflict Settings: A UNDP Discussion Paper”, p. 13, at http://uncdf.org/gfld/docs/post-conflict.pdf [last visited 16 June 2013].
27. 28 While both major ethnic Macedonian parties have been guilty, this phenomenon has become particularly pronounced since 2006, under the watch of the VMRO-DPMNE.
28. 29 ‘Половина буџет за плати и социјала’ (A Half of the Budget for Salaries and Social Affairs), Dnevnik (Skopje), 25 October 2010, at http://dnevnik.com.mk/?itemID=9A2E328 1E1E54944BEAE4DE6FB1703D7&arc=1 [last visited 8 September 2011].
29. 30 Based on what was agreed on at Ohrid, Albanians should make up 25% of the public administration, in line with their share of Macedonia’s population. The simultaneous recruitment of Macedonians, however, means this target has yet to be reached. The precise number of people employed in the public administration is a closely guarded secret. In the absence of official figures, based on verbal statements by government ministers, it is thought to number upwards of 120,000, of which 17% are believed to be Albanian- well below the 25% mandated by the OFA. As such, of the Framework Agreement’s core provisions, it is proportional representation in the public administration that, today, remains the furthest from being accomplished; see, “Се вработуваат Албанци, но и многу Македонци” (Albanians are getting hired, but so are many Macedonians), at http://www.vreme.com.mk/ DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=10&tabid=1&EditionID=1913&ArticleID=130890 [last visited 8 September 2011].
30. 31 Ohrid Framework Agreement, Section 4.2, Non-Discrimination and Equitable Representation.
31. 32 Macedonia’s public administration is highly politicised. Indeed, gaining employment in the public administration depends largely on whether one is affiliated to the political parties in power- a practice that Macedonian and Albanian parties alike are guilty of; see, International Crisis Group details in, “Macedonia: Ten Years After the Conflict”, pp. 10-11.
32. 33 For example, on state holidays such as the Republic Day (November 29) and the Macedonian National Uprising Day (October 11).
33. 34 The Law on the Use of Flags of Ethnic Communities stipulates that the Macedonian flag must be one-third larger than the national flag of the non-Macedonian community. 35 The use of Albanian in parliament has come to be accepted, despite initial opposition from ethnic Macedonians, as evidenced by the refusal of some members to use translation headsets in the opening session of the first post-conflict parliament.
34. 36 Ripiloski, Conflict in Macedonia, p. 117.
35. 37 Ohrid Framework Agreement, Section 6.5, Education and Use of Languages
36. 38 Vetterlein, “The Influence of the Ohrid Framework Agreement”, p. 8.
37. 39 Ohrid Framework Agreement, Section 6.2, Education and Use of Languages.
38. 40 Indictments were specifically issued for Ljube Boškoski, Macedonia’s then interior minister, and Johan Tarčulovski, an ethnic Macedonian police officer. Boškoski was acquitted in 2008 of war crimes, while Tarčulovski was given a 12-year prison sentence.
39. 41 For specific information on these cases (“NLA Leadership”; “Mavrovo Road Workers”; “Lipkovo Water Reserve”; and “Neprosteno”), see International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, “Press Release: The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Requested to Defer Five Cases to the Competence of the International Tribunal”, at http://www.icty.org/ sid/8069 [last visited 10 August 2012].
40. 42 Sinisa Jakov Marusic, “Macedonia Abandons Hague Cases”, Balkan Insight, at http://www. balkaninsight.com/en/article/macedonia-passes-amnesty-for-hague-cases [last visited 25 September 2012].
41. 43 In July 2011, parliament adopted the so-called “authentic interpretation” of the Amnesty Law, which obliged the Office of the Public Prosecutor and all courts on the territory of the country to halt procedures connected to the four cases.
42. 44 Amnesty International, “Macedonia: Time to Deliver Justice to the Victims of War Crimes”, at http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/macedonia-time-deliver-justicevictims-war-crimes-2011-09-01 [last visited 30 October 2011].
43. 45 The Turkish community in Centar Župa, Mavrovo and Rostuša, and Plasnica; the Serb community in Čučer-Sandevo; and the Roma community in Šuto Orizari; see, 2002 national census, Table 3: Total Population of the Republic of Macedonia According to Ethnic Affiliation, pp. 34-35: State Statistical Office, Republic of Macedonia, ‘Census of Population, Households and Dwellings in the Republic of Macedonia, 2002, Final Data’, 2005, at http:// www.stat.gov.mk/pdf/kniga_13.pdf [last visited 24 November 2011].
44. 46 Section 4.2 of the Framework Agreement, on Non-Discrimination and Equitable Representation, calls for “the authorities…[to] take action to correct present imbalances in the composition of the public administration, in particular through the recruitment of members of under-represented communities”.
45. 47 International Crisis Group, “Macedonia: Ten Years After the Conflict”, p. 15, n.151.
46. 48 Ohrid Framework Agreement, Section 6.6, Education and Use of Languages.
47. 49 The Turkish language has been granted official status in Gostivar, the Vlach language in Kruševo, and the Serbian and Romani languages in Kumanovo despite these communities not meeting the 20% threshold in the municipalities in question; see, International Crisis Group, “Macedonia: Ten Years After the Conflict”, p. 16.
48. 50 Florian Bieber, “Partial Implementation, Partial Success: The Case of Macedonia”, in Ian O’Flynn and David Russell (eds.), Power Sharing: New Challenges for Divided Societies, London, Pluto, 2005, p. 113.
49. 51 Vangelovski, “The Framework Agreement in Macedonia”, p. 10.
50. 52 The constitutional mechanism that specifies double majority voting is named after the French jurist Robert Badinter, who recommended the provision.
51. 53 Ripiloski, Conflict in Macedonia, p. 117.
52. 54 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, “Law Drafting and Regulatory Management in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: An Assessment”, p. 13, n.8, at http://www.osce.org/odihr/34685 [last visited 23 September 2012].
53. 55 Paul Collier, Anke Hoeffler and Måns Söderbom, Post-Conflict Risks, CSAE WPS/2006-12, University of Oxford, 2006, p. 9.
54. 56 See, for instance, Cindy Jebb and Peter Liotta, “Macedonia: End of the Beginning or Beginning of the End?”, Parameters, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Spring 2002), pp. 96-111.
55. 57 Macedonia’s bid for EU membership is effectively frozen, linked to the failure to resolve the name dispute with Greece, with the country still awaiting a start date for negotiations some seven years after it was granted candidate status. The EU’s standing- within government and the general public- has waned as the integration process has stalled. Simply put, membership of the organisation no longer carries the gravitational pull in Macedonia that it once did, certainly within the majority community. With its appeal and influence noticeably diminished, Macedonia has changed its behaviour towards the union, which, today, is more engaged in delivering soft criticism to political leaders in regular meetings held behind closed doors, as opposed to bringing genuine and concerted pressure to bear on the government to leverage it into necessary reform. This is an important factor in explaining the recent atrophy of Macedonia’s internal politics, most noticeably restrictions on media freedom.
56. 58 The name dispute has proved intractable, producing one of the more peculiar bilateral disagreements of modern times. Greece placed trade sanctions on its landlocked northern neighbour in the early to mid-1990s, and obstructed its accession to regional and international bodies. Macedonia did not become a UN member until April 1993, and only then under the provisional name of “the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”. Talks between the two sides remain ongoing- albeit irregularly- under the auspices of the UN