Macedonia’s Ethnic Albanians: Bridging the Gulf

Ten years after independence, Macedonia’s two largest ethnic groups continue to lead very separate and distinct lives. The uneasy co-existence between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians has only just withstood the violent breakup of Yugoslavia and the continuing instability in Kosovo. Valid concerns about Macedonia’s security are too often being used to justify postponing hard decisions about internal problems. Political leaders on both sides of the ethnic divide, while negotiating privately for piecemeal improvements, publicly cater to the more extreme nationalists in their respective parties, and positions are hardening. There is a continued reluctance to squarely confront the compromises that would legally safeguard Macedonia’s multi-ethnic composition: if that reluctance is not soon overcome, Macedonia and the region face renewed instability.

Compared with the rest of the region (Montenegro apart) Macedonia has been something of a multi-ethnic success story. The country has thus far managed to maintain a relatively high degree of stability. Gloomy scenarios about the country's disintegration and a possible division amongst its neighbours have not materialised. But its citizens’ increasingly contradictory views of inter-ethnic relations are worrying. Ask ethnic Albanians about the state of current relations and they are likely to reply that relations have never been better. Ask ethnic Macedonians and they are likely to respond that relations have never been worse. This gulf between these two peoples is what shapes the country’s uneasy coexistence. Albanians are by far the largest national minority in Macedonia, and their status within the state and their attitude towards it have a direct bearing upon Macedonia's long-term stability and viability.

Relations between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians have long been problematic. During the 1980s, Macedonia’s then-communist authorities supported Serbia’s crackdown on ethnic Albanians. Macedonian independence in 1991 brought many positive gains to the ethnic Albanians and other minorities but the overall record of inter-ethnic relations is still mixed. Ethnic Albanians and other minorities complain that they are discriminated against daily. Ethnic Macedonians express understandable fears about their country being divided and reduced in the context of the emergence of a Greater Albania or Greater Kosovo.

Macedonia itself can do little to influence the outcome of events in Kosovo and must rely upon international guarantees for security. The Kosovo crisis exposed many of the fundamental divisions between the country’s ethnic Albanians and ethnic Macedonians. Again, the two cultures could not have been further apart in their views of the conflict. Almost all ethnic Albanians in Macedonia believe that the conflict in Kosovo was necessary and worthwhile as it brought about the "liberation" of Kosovo from Belgrade's control. Ethnic Macedonians, however, worry that growing demands for the independence of Kosovo will encourage similar territorial aspirations among Albanians in Macedonia. They view ethnic Albanians as a minority entitled to certain guaranteed rights like any other minority in the country but not at the expense of diminishing their country’s Slavic character.

What exactly ethnic Albanians in Macedonia want is one of the most sensitive questions in the southern Balkans. There is a window of opportunity that remains open for the European Union to help shape the ethnic Albanian agenda and the ethnic Macedonian response by encouraging both communities to work through their differences within a context of integration with European security, political and economic institutions. Now is the time for reaching a final status agreement: the window of opportunity will not remain open indefinitely.


Recommendations

Political

1. Any resolution of Kosovo’s final status should be made contingent upon provisions for ensuring Macedonia’s territorial integrity and the Kosovo Albanians’ explicit acknowledgement that they make no effort to include Macedonia’s Albanians in a broader ethnic Albanian national state.

2. The European Union (EU) should take the lead role for the international community in drawing Macedonia into both European and transatlantic political, security and economic institutions.

3. The EU should appoint a high-level EU integration advisor for Macedonia to encourage and facilitate the political and economic changes that are needed, both to facilitate ethnic integration and Macedonian stability and to lay the groundwork for European integration.

4. The EU should encourage Macedonia’s governing coalition partners to begin serious negotiations for a political settlement between the ethnic Macedonians and the country’s minority inhabitants, which would include if necessary an amendment to the constitution to meet ethnic Albanian and other minority concerns.

5. The EU should take all available opportunities to remind politicians in the ethnic Albanian and Macedonian communities of the dangers of extreme rhetoric in the current regional setting and urge that such rhetoric be tamped down.
6. The OSCE should take a leading role in encouraging electoral reform that makes elected officials accountable to the entire electorate and not exclusively to their own communities.

7. The OSCE should begin to focus on the political ramifications of the upcoming census due to be conducted in April 2001 and work directly with the ethnic Albanian political leadership to avoid repeating the disputed outcomes of the 1991 and 1994 censuses. This should include recruitment and training of ethnic Albanian staff for the Macedonian Statistical Office in order to dispel charges that the census methodology and tabulation were manipulated.

8. Local governments should be given the flexibility to raise local revenue in order to provide critical public services at the community level. Continued technical assistance in this area by USAID and the EU Phare should be based on demonstrated progress following local elections. The current number of municipal units should be reduced from 124 to around 80.

Security

9. NATO should seek agreement with Skopje to maintain a NATO troop presence along Macedonia’s borders with Kosovo and Serbia for an indefinite period.

Economic Assistance

10. The European Commission should take the leading role in organising and co-ordinating, with support from the United States and international financial institutions, a multi-year international economic assistance package that targets reforms focused on advancing the ethnic integration agenda for Macedonia.

11. The European Union should take all available opportunities to encourage significant private investment in Macedonia.

Education

12. International donors should make funding of higher education contingent upon progress by the Macedonian government in finding an effective long-term solution to providing access to, and funding of, higher education for all the country’s minorities. Early establishment of an Albanian language university and transparent decision-making procedures should be a key focus of this initiative.

Media

13. Western governments, international organisations and NGOs should provide financial assistance to private media outlets in order to offer staff salaries that are competitive with salaries offered to translators by the international community.