MACEDONIA: PRESIDENT ON COHABITATION CHALLENGES

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 SKOPJE 000766 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR EUR/SCE (PFEUFFER) E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/21/2017 TAGS: PREL PGOV MK KV SUBJECT: MACEDONIA: PRESIDENT ON COHABITATION CHALLENGES REF: A. SKOPJE 730 ¶B. SKOPJE 719 Classified By: P/E CHIEF SHUBLER, REASONS 1.4 (b) & (d). SUMMARY ¶1. (C) President Crvenkovski outlined for the Ambassador on September 19 his proposal for working with Prime Minister Gruevski to improve cohabitation and to resolve the issue of composing the State Judicial Council (SJC),a key NATO membership-related task. Gruevski's initial crude rebuff of the proposal risks closing the window of opportunity Crvenkovski has opened. We will press the GOM to show greater flexibility in responding to the President's proposal which, if implemented, could strengthen Macedonia's NATO candidacy. End summary. COHABITATION -- A STEP FORWARD.... ¶2. (SBU) The Ambassador met with President Crvenkovski, at his request, September 19 to discuss cohabitation challenges (septel reports on his views on the name issue, Kosovo, and security matters). Crvenkovski started the meeting by outlining an initiative he had unveiled on September 17 to try to improve cohabitation with Prime Minister Gruevski in order to break the deadlock over the composition of the 15-member State Judicial Council (SJC). He said he had stated his willingness to give up his constitutional power to propose candidates for two of the five SJC seats that remain unfilled, as long as the government and opposition could agree on the appointment of all five SJC positions -- the President's two seats and the Parliament's three seats to nominate. (NOTE: Of the 15 SJC seats, 10 already have been filled. END NOTE.) ¶3. (SBU) In terms of process, Crvenkovski said he had suggested starting with the list of the 35 qualified candidates who applied, and then working with the leaders of the four major parties in the parliament (governing VMRO and DPA, and opposition SDSM and DUI) to whittle the list down to five final candidates through a process of elimination. He pledged to approve any list of five final candidates, as long as they were acceptable to the group of four party leaders, were not politically affiliated, and were unlikely to exercise political influence on the judiciary. ¶4. (SBU) Crvenkovski also proposed breaking the deadlock on appointment of new Macedonian ambassadors to 10 vacant posts by agreeing to approve candidates from a list of 106 MFA diplomats who meet the qualifications stipulated under the Law on Foreign Affairs. He pointed out that, under the law, two-thirds of ambassadorial posts overseas are to be filled by career diplomats; under the current government, only 10 percent of ambassadors meet that requirement. As a result, he had agreed to let the GOM select the candidates, including for such key posts as NATO and the EU. He would accept those candidates without pre-consultations (even though the law required such consultations),as long as they were chosen from the list of career diplomats eligible to assume the rank of Ambassador. ....AN AWKWARD TANGO, PROTOCOL BREACHES ¶5. (C) Instead of responding to his ideas for breaking the logjam, Crvenkovski said (and the media has widely reported), PM Gruevski had counterproposed to meet on September 20 to discuss the State Judicial Council and other priority issues. The President was not averse to meeting but found the proposed timing for the meeting frustrating -- why did Gruevski need to wait another two days to act? Time was running out for Macedonia to obtain a favorable EU progress report from Brussels, the President added. "What on the Prime Minister's calendar could be more urgent than solving these issues?" he asked rhetorically. ¶6. (C) In addition to stalling for three days, Gruevski had informed the President in his letter that the President should meet the Prime Minister in the latter's cabinet, instead of in the President's office, a breach of standard protocol (and a further public snug by Gruevski). "Never SKOPJE 00000766 002 OF 002 before in the history of Macedonia," Crvenkovski said, "has a President been summoned to a Prime Minister's office." Adding insult to injury, the Gruevski proposal had addressed the President as "Mr. Crvenkovski," another egregious breach of protocol reflecting Gruevski's long-standing refusal to accept the legitimacy (confirmed by OSCE and ODIHR at the time) of Crvenkovski's 2004 election to office. NEED TO DEMONSTRATE POLITICAL MATURITY, RESULTS ¶7. (C) The Ambassador said we welcomed President Crvenkovski's initiative and agreed that it was unfortunate that the GOM had not reacted to the proposal with greater dispatch. We also wanted faster movement on the SJC composition, and had told the GOM as much on several occasions. All parties needed to show that the political system in Macedonia could function properly. Crvenkovski replied that, even if the meeting with Gruevski failed to materialize, he would join the follow-on meeting Gruevski had proposed for the same day with SDSM, DUI, and DPA, and to which the President had been invited. A DANGEROUS SCENARIO -- EARLY ELECTIONS ¶8. (C) Responding to a question from the Ambassador, Crvenkovski said the reason there had been no progress on resolving the SJC issue in the past several months through discussions with the opposition, was that Gruevski had shifted direction and had instead tried to buy off the smaller ethnic minorities with amendments to the electoral code (ref A),in exchange for their support for government candidates for the SJC. He had tried to push through the electoral code amendments, without consulting the opposition, in order to quickly gain support for finalizing composition of the SJC. ¶9. (C) These tactical maneuvers were part of Gruevski's plan for what Crvenkovski described as a "dangerous scenario" in which the Prime Minister would call snap elections in May 2008, provided Macedonia received a NATO membership invitation at the Bucharest Summit. This, the President believed, explained Gruevski's neglect of EU priorities. Gruevski had concluded the EU was a distant goal and was not focused on it, but this, the President acknowledged, could in turn hurt Macedonia's progress on completing NATO tasks. At any rate, the President said, Gruevski believed that NATO membership for Macedonia already was a foregone conclusion. (NOTE: See ref B for an assessment of the likelihood of early elections before/before the Bucharest Summit. END NOTE.) ¶10. (C) The Ambassador replied that such logic, if Gruevski bought it, was deeply flawed. The USG could only support Macedonia's NATO candidacy if the country met the membership criteria. No decision on membership had been made yet, and in any event Gruevski had to realize that there was a natural overlap between EU and NATO membership criteria. We would continue to work with Gruevski and the rest of the GOM, as we had been for months, to make this clear and to keep them focused on completing the tasks related to their Euro-Atlantic integration goals. COMMENT ¶11. (C) Crvenkovski's statesmanlike initiative opens a window of opportunity that could improve cohabitation, resolve the SJC issue, and strengthen Macedonia's NATO and EU candidacies if Prime Minister Gruevski seizes the moment. Gruevski's initial crude rebuff risks closing that window; it could be weeks or months -- time which Macedonia cannot afford to lose -- before a similar opportunity arises. We will work with the GOM to keep the window open and ensure both sides demonstrate the flexibility to capitalize on this opportunity to advance Macedonia's NATO bid. MILOVANOVIC