What if the negotiations between Macedonia and Greece do not yield any results soon? Will Macedonia’s European and Euro-Atlantic integration remain hostage to the long-standing name dispute? Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said in his address at the 68th annual meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York on Friday that after 22 years it is time the UN came up with alternative solutions.
Based on the opinions gathered from connoisseurs of the negotiation process, former ministers of foreign affairs and international law experts, Dnevnik has drawn up five possible alternatives being within the framework of the rules of the United Nations and the Security Council Resolutions. Three of them are quite feasible given that Greece has closed almost all doors to negotiations by avoiding meetings with Macedonian officials and by setting ultimatums and insisting on an erga omnes application of the negotiated name. Terminating all talks under Nimetz’s auspices is not an option either considering that Macedonia does not have the diplomatic power to sell the world the story that it is doing it because it has to and not with the aim of blocking the process or for spite.
1. Application of the Hague Judgment
2. Nimetz initiating a resolution at the Security Council
3. New vote at the UN General Assembly
4. Ban Ki-moon bringing Skopje and Athens at the same table
