naming dispute (1991–2019) between Greece (which has a region named Macedonia) and the Republic of Macedonia, ending with the latter being renamed North Macedonia
The use of the country name "Macedonia" was disputed between the Hellenic Republic and the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) between 1991 and 2019. The dispute was a source of instability in the Western Balkans for 25 years. It was resolved through negotiations between the two countries, mediated by the United Nations, resulting in the Prespa Agreement, which was signed on 17 June 2018. Pertinent to its background is an early 20th-century multifaceted dispute and armed conflict that formed part of the background to the Balkan Wars. The specific naming dispute, although an issue in Yugoslav–Greek relations after World War II, was reignited after the breakup of Yugoslavia and the newly-gained independence of the former Socialist Republic of Macedonia in 1991. From then, it continued to be an issue in bilateral and international relations until it was settled with the Prespa Agreement in June 2018, the subsequent ratification by the Macedonian and Greek parliaments in late 2018 and early 2019 respectively, and the renaming of Macedonia to North Macedonia in February 2019.
The dispute arose from the ambiguity in nomenclature between the Republic of Macedonia, the adjacent Greek region of Macedonia and the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. Citing historical and irredentist concerns, Greece opposed the use of the name "Macedonia" without a geographical qualifier such as "Northern Macedonia" for use "by all ... and for all purposes". As a significant contingent of ethnic Greeks identify themselves as Macedonians and view themselves as unrelated to ethnic Macedonians, Greece further objected to the use of the term "Macedonian" for the neighboring country's largest ethnic group and language. North Macedonia was accused by Greece of appropriating symbols and figures that are historically considered part of Greek culture such as the Vergina Sun and Alexander the Great, and of promoting the irredentist concepts of Antiquisation and United Macedonia, which involve territorial and historical claims on its neighbours and especially Greece.
The dispute escalated to the highest level of international mediation, involving numerous attempts to achieve a resolution. In 1995, the two countries formalised bilateral relations and committed to start negotiations on the naming issue, under the auspices of the United Nations. Until a solution was found, the provisional reference "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (FYROM) was used by multiple international organisations and states. UN members, and the UN as a whole, agreed to accept any name resulting from successful negotiations between the two countries. The parties were represented by Ambassadors Vasko Naumovski and Adamantios Vassilakis with the mediation of Matthew Nimetz, who had worked on the issue since 1994.
On 12 June 2018, an agreement was reached. A referendum was held in Macedonia on 30 September 2018, with voters overwhelmingly affirming support for EU and NATO membership by accepting the Prespa Agreement. However, voter turnout was well below the 50 percent threshold needed to validate the result. Therefore, the agreement had to be ratified by the Macedonian Assembly with a two-thirds majority. After the agreement was ratified by both sides, it entered into force on 12 February 2019. On 27 March 2020, North Macedonia became the 30th member of NATO.
The use of the country name "Macedonia" was disputed between the Hellenic Republic and the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) between 1991 and 2019. The dispute was a source of instability in the Western Balkans for 25 years. It was resolved through negotiations between the two countries, mediated by the United Nations, resulting in the Prespa Agreement, which was signed on 17 June 2018. Pertinent to its background is an early 20th-century multifaceted dispute and armed conflict that formed part of the background to the Balkan Wars. The specific naming dispute, although an issue in Yugoslav–Greek relations after World War II, was reignited after the breakup of Yugoslavia and the newly-gained independence of the former Socialist Republic of Macedonia in 1991. From then, it continued to be an issue in bilateral and international relations until it was settled with the Prespa Agreement in June 2018, the subsequent ratification by the Macedonian and Greek parliaments in late 2018 and early 2019 respectively, and the renaming of Macedonia to North Macedonia in February 2019.
The dispute arose from the ambiguity in nomenclature between the Republic of Macedonia, the adjacent Greek region of Macedonia and the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. Citing historical and irredentist concerns, Greece opposed the use of the name "Macedonia" without a geographical qualifier such as "Northern Macedonia" for use "by all ... and for all purposes". As a significant contingent of ethnic Greeks identify themselves as Macedonians and view themselves as unrelated to ethnic Macedonians, Greece further objected to the use of the term "Macedonian" for the neighboring country's largest ethnic group and language. North Macedonia was accused by Greece of appropriating symbols and figures that are historically considered part of Greek culture such as the Vergina Sun and Alexander the Great, and of promoting the irredentist concepts of Antiquisation and United Macedonia, which involve territorial and historical claims on its neighbours and especially Greece.
The dispute escalated to the highest level of international mediation, involving numerous attempts to achieve a resolution. In 1995, the two countries formalised bilateral relations and committed to start negotiations on the naming issue, under the auspices of the United Nations. Until a solution was found, the provisional reference "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (FYROM) was used by multiple international organisations and states. UN members, and the UN as a whole, agreed to accept any name resulting from successful negotiations between the two countries. The parties were represented by Ambassadors Vasko Naumovski and Adamantios Vassilakis with the mediation of Matthew Nimetz, who had worked on the issue since 1994.
On 12 June 2018, an agreement was reached. A referendum was held in Macedonia on 30 September 2018, with voters overwhelmingly affirming support for EU and NATO membership by accepting the Prespa Agreement. However, voter turnout was well below the 50 percent threshold needed to validate the result. Therefore, the agreement had to be ratified by the Macedonian Assembly with a two-thirds majority. After the agreement was ratified by both sides, it entered into force on 12 February 2019. On 27 March 2020, North Macedonia became the 30th member of NATO.
History
Background
In antiquity, the territory of the present-day Republic of North Macedonia equated approximately to the kingdom of Paeonia, which lay immediately north of ancient Macedonia. The western and central parts of modern Greek region of Macedonia approximately corresponds to that of ancient Macedonia, while the Bulgarian part and the eastern part of the Greek area, are mostly in Ancient Thrace. After the Romans conquered Greece in 168 BC they established a large administrative district in northern Greece which added Paeonia and eastern parts of Ancient Thrace to other territories outside the original ancient Macedonia. It used the name 'Macedonia' to describe the whole of this new province. This province was divided in the 4th century CE into Macedonia Prima ("first Macedonia") in the south, encompassing most of the ancient Macedonia and southeastern parts of Ancient Thrace, coinciding with the modern Greek region of Macedonia, and Macedonia Salutaris ("wholesome Macedonia", also called Macedonia Secunda – "second Macedonia") in the north, encompassing partially Dardania, the whole of Paeonia and northeastern Thrace. Thus Macedonia Salutaris encompassed most of the present-day North Macedonia and southeastern Bulgaria. In late Roman times, the provincial boundaries were reorganized to form the Diocese of Macedonia, which was much larger. This situation lasted, with some modifications, until the 7th century.
From the beginning of the 6th century, the former Roman province, then part of the Byzantine Empire became a subject to frequent raids by Early Slavs which, in the course of next centuries, resulted in drastic demographic and cultural changes. The Slavs continued to assault the Byzantine Empire, either independently, or aided by Bulgars or Avars during the 7th century. The Byzantines organized a massive expedition against the Slavs in the area. They subdued many Slavic tribes and established a new theme of Thrace in the hinterland of Thessaloniki. A new theme called Macedonia was created in the late 8th century from the older theme of Thrace. Most of the modern region of Macedonia became in the 9th century a Bulgarian province known as Kutmichevitsa. Its southern parts corresponded to new Byzantine provinces of Thessalonica and Strymon. The area of North Macedonia was incorporated again into the Byzantine Empire in the early 11th century as a new province called Bulgaria. As a result for nearly thousand years the name of Macedonia had different meanings for Western Europeans and for the Balkan people. For the Westerners it denoted the territory of the Ancient Macedonia, but for the Balkan Christians, when rarely used, it covered the territories of the former Byzantine theme of Macedonia, situated between modern Turkish Edirne and the river Nestos, in present-day Thrace. The Ottoman Empire absorbed the area in the 14th century.
There was no Ottoman province called Macedonia. The Balkans became part of province called Rumelia. In the early 19th century the name of Macedonia was almost forgotten in the modern-day area, but within the decades after the Greek independence (1830) it was revived by the Greek propaganda. In 1893 a revolutionary movement against Ottoman rule began, resulting in the Ilinden Uprising on 2 August 1903 (St. Elias's Day). The failure of the Ilinden Uprising caused a change in the strategy of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (then Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization) from revolutionary to institutional. It split into two wings: one led by Yane Sandanski and fighting for autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople regions inside the Ottoman Empire or inside a Balkan Federation, and a second Supremist wing supporting the inclusion of Macedonia and Southern Thrace in Bulgaria. After the Ilinden Uprising, the revolutionary movement ceased and opened a space for the Macedonian Struggle: frequent insurgencies of Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian squads into Ottoman Europe, including the ill-defined territory of the wider Macedonian region. In 1912 rivalries resulted in the First Balkan War of 1912–1913, and the Ottomans lost most of their European lands.
In 1913, the Second Balkan War began in the aftermath of the division of the Balkans among five entities to have secured control over these territories: Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Montenegro (all hitherto recognized). Albania, in conflict with Serbia, Montenegro and Greece, declared its independence in 1912, striving for recognition. The Treaty of London (1913) assigned the region of the future Republic of North Macedonia to Serbia. The outbreak of the First World War allowed Bulgaria to occupy eastern Macedonia and Vardar Macedonia, helping Austria-Hungary defeat the Serbs by the end of 1915, and leading to the opening of the Macedonian front against the Greek part of Macedonia. Bulgaria would maintain control over the area until their capitulation in September 1918, at which point the borders reverted (with small adjustments) to the situation of 1913, and the present-day Republic of North Macedonia became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. This period saw the rise of ideals of a separate Macedonian state in Greece. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes changed its name in 1929 to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the present-day Republic of North Macedonia was included as South Serbia in a province named Vardar Banovina. During World War II, Axis forces occupied much of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1941. Bulgaria as an associate of the Axis powers advanced into the territory of the Republic of North Macedonia and the Greek province of Macedonia in 1941. The territory of the Republic of North Macedonia was divided between Bulgaria and Italian Albania in June 1941.
The Yugoslav Communists Resistance began officially in 1941 in what is now North Macedonia. On 2 August 1944 (St. Elias's Day), honoring the fighters of the Ilinden Uprising, the Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM), meeting in the Bulgarian occupation zone, proclaimed clandestinely the Macedonian state (Democratic Federal Macedonia) as a federal state within the framework of the future Yugoslav federation. In 1946 the People's Republic of Macedonia was recognized by the new communist constitution as a federal component of the newly proclaimed Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito. The issue of the republic's name immediately sparked controversy with Greece over Greek concerns that it presaged a territorial claim on the Greek coastal region of Macedonia (see Territorial concerns below). The U.S. Roosevelt administration expressed the same concern through Edward Stettinius in 1944. The Greek press and the Greek government of Andreas Papandreou continued to express the above concerns confronting the views of Yugoslavia during the 1980s and until the Revolutions of 1989.
In 1963 the People's Republic of Macedonia was renamed the "Socialist Republic of Macedonia" when the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was renamed the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It dropped the "Socialist" from its name a few months before declaring independence from Yugoslavia in September 1991.
Formation of the Republic of Macedonia
Strong Greek opposition delayed the newly independent republic's accession to the United Nations and its recognition by the European Community (EC). Although the Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on the former Yugoslavia declared that the then called Republic of Macedonia met the conditions set by the EC for international recognition, Greece opposed the international community recognizing the Republic due to a number of objections concerning the country's name, flag and constitution. In an effort to block the European Community from recognizing the Republic, the Greek government persuaded the EC to adopt a common declaration establishing conditions for recognition which included a ban on "territorial claims towards a neighboring Community state, hostile propaganda and the use of a denomination that implies territorial claims".
In Greece, about one million Greek Macedonians participated in the "Rally for Macedonia" (Greek: Συλλαλητήριο για τη Μακεδονία), a very large demonstration that took place in the streets of Thessaloniki in 1992. The rally aimed to object to "Macedonia" being a part of the name of then newly established Republic of Macedonia. In a following major rally in Australia, held in Melbourne and organised by the Macedonians of the Greek diaspora (which has a strong presence there), about 100,000 people protested. The major slogan of these rallies was "Macedonia is Greek" (Greek: H Μακεδονία είναι ελληνική).
Greece's major political parties agreed on 13 April 1992 not to accept the word "Macedonia" in any way in the new republic's name. This became the cornerstone of the Greek position on the issue. The Greek diaspora also mobilized in the naming controversy. A U.S. Greek group, Americans for the Just Resolution of the Macedonian Issue, placed a full-page advertisement in the 26 April and 10 May 1992 editions of the New York Times, urging President George H. W. Bush "not to discount the concerns of the Greek people" by recognizing the "Republic of Skopje" as Macedonia. Greek-Canadians mounted a similar campaign. The EC subsequently issued a declaration expressing a willingness "to recognize that republic within its existing borders ... under a name which does not include the term Macedonia".
Greek objections likewise held up the wider international recognition of the then Republic of Macedonia. Although the Republic applied for membership of the United Nations on 30 July 1992, its application languished in diplomatic limbo for nearly a year. A few states—Bulgaria, Turkey, Slovenia, Croatia, Belarus, and Lithuania—recognized the republic under its constitutional name before its admission to the United Nations. Most, however, waited to see what the United Nations would do. The delay had a serious effect on the Republic, as it led to a worsening of its already precarious economic and political conditions. With war raging in nearby Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Croatia, the need to ensure the country's stability became an urgent priority for the international community. The deteriorating security situation led to the UN's first-ever preventative peacekeeping deployment in December 1992, when units of the United Nations Protection Force deployed to monitor possible border violations from Serbia.
Compromise solutions
During 1992, the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia all adopted the appellation "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" to refer to the Republic in their discussions and dealings with it. The same terminology was proposed in January 1993 by France, Spain and the United Kingdom, the three EC members of the United Nations Security Council, to enable the Republic to join the United Nations. The proposal was circulated on 22 January 1993 by the United Nations Secretary General. However, it was initially rejected by both sides in the dispute. It was immediately opposed by the Greek Foreign Minister, Michalis Papakonstantinou. In a letter to the Secretary General dated 25 January 1993, he argued that admitting the republic "prior to meeting the necessary prerequisites, and in particular abandoning the use of the denomination 'Republic of Macedonia', would perpetuate and increase friction and tension and would not be conducive to peace and stability in an already troubled region."