MACEDONIA: PM GRUEVSKI ON ELECTIONS, NAME DISPUTE,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 SKOPJE 000290 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR EUR/SCE E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/25/2018 TAGS: PREL PGOV NATO ETRD MK GR SUBJECT: MACEDONIA: PM GRUEVSKI ON ELECTIONS, NAME DISPUTE, AND KOSOVO REF: SKOPJE Classified By: P/E CHIEF SHUBLER, REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D). SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) During an April 24 meeting, the Ambassador urged PM Gruevski to work for free, fair, and peaceful parliamentary elections on June 1. She also asked him to ensure his government refrained from provocative actions/statements that could make it more difficult to resolve the name dispute with Greece, and reiterated our position rejecting linkage between demarcation of the Kosovo-Macedonia border and the GOM's recognition of Kosovo. Gruevski said his party, currently enjoying high polls, has a special interest in ensuring clean elections; a flawed electoral process would be "catastrophic" for Macedonia. The Prime Minister was skeptical of the Kosovar commitment to border demarcation, and complained that Pristina is moving too slowly to begin the process of physical demarcation. We believe recent hardline statements on the name issue reflect a mix of campaign rhetoric and the government's intent to strengthen its internal negotiating position in the event it seems possible to achieve a name compromise with Greece anytime soon. End summary. PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS: MACEDONIA UNDER CLOSER SCRUTINY -------------- -------------- ¶2. (SBU) During discussions with PM Gruevski April 23, the Ambassador informed the PM that she had been meeting with both government and opposition political party leaders to deliver a consistent message on the need for free, fair, and non-violent early parliamentary elections scheduled for June ¶1. As a NATO candidate judged to have met membership standards at the recent Bucharest Summit, Macedonia is now looked at as a country that should be able to do this correctly, and would be under even closer scrutiny than during previous elections. This round of voting would have to be at least as good as the parliamentary elections in 2006, which were judged to have generally met international standards. It would be essential to avoid incendiary rhetoric and security incidents, and to ensure government funds or other resources were not used to provide an unfair campaign advantage to any party. The Ambassador also pressed for adequate funding to allow the State Electoral Commission and the Broadcasting Council to perform their electoral administration and monitoring functions. FLAWED ELECTIONS WOULD BE A CATASTROPHE FOR MACEDONIA -------------- -------------- ¶4. (C) Gruevski said the government was committed to free and fair elections, and that his party (VMRO) had a special stake in a clean process because of its high poll numbers. It would be a "catastrophe, he said, if the elections were flawed. Responding to the Ambassador's concerns regarding reports that his eAlbanian governing coalition partner, DPA President Thaci, had demanded 3,000 jobs for eAlbanians to boost its poll ratings before the elections, Gruevski explained that he initially had refused Thaci's demand. Thaci then had asked Gruevski if he could at least announce that the GOM was hiring the 3,000 eAlbanians. Gruevski had concurred, but told the Ambassador that Thaci knew "not even 10 percent of those jobs" could be funded. He added that he eventually would inform the media that the 3,000 jobs pledge was part of a long-term government hiring plan. Gruevski said he would urge Thaci to ensure his supporters refrained from any kind of electoral fraud, intimidation, or violence. NAME DISPUTE: AVOID PROVOCATIONS -------------- ¶5. (C) On the name dispute, the Ambassador urged Gruevski to ensure parties did not misuse the campaign period to issue harsh statements that could provoke Athens. While we understood that some hardline GOM statements were intended for public consumption during the campaign, and some were meant to strengthen the GOM's internal negotiating position, recent provocative comments by FM Milososki in response to his Greek counterpart would only make it more difficult to SKOPJE 00000290 002 OF 002 reach a compromise solution. It would be helpful if Milososki curbed his rhetoric. KOSOVO RECOGNITION AND BORDER DEMARCATION: NO LINKAGE -------------- -------------- ¶6. (C) On Kosovo, the Ambassador reiterated our position that border demarcation and recognition should not be linked. Demarcation was a technical matter; we had worked hard to get the Kosovars to agree to including appropriate language on it in the Ahtisaari plan. We understood the GOM's desire to quickly begin the demarcation process, but the earlier the decision to recognize on Skopje's part, the easier it would be to facilitate rapid demarcation. Referring to the GOM's desire to immediately demarcate four "tough" sections of the border that might be subject to dispute by some Kosovars, she suggested demarcating some easier areas to show that Pristina was willing to proceed in earnest. After that, GOM recognition of Kosovo would help facilitate demarcation of the remainder of the border. ¶7. (C) PM Gruevski said he did not believe the Kosovars were genuinely committed to demarcating the "tough" areas, and that he could not understand why they were reluctant to move more quickly to begin the physical demarcation process. The Ambassador replied that there had to be confidence on both sides that each was willing to fulfill its obligations to the other. She suggested tackling demarcation of one undisputed section of the border, while at the same time demarcating the least-difficult of the four "tough" sections as way to get that confidence-building process started. FM MILOSOSKI'S VISIT TO WASHINGTON -------------- ¶8. (C) The Ambassador reiterated her earlier message that FM Milososki should not overplay the enhanced cooperation we are discussing by characterizing it publicly as a security guarantee. Gruevski said he understood that a security guarantee was not going to happen, and said he would instruct his cabinet to refer to the cooperation discussions planned for the May 7 ministerial meeting in Washington with the Secretary in whatever terms we would advise. The Ambassador SIPDIS told Gruevski that we would seek guidance from Washington on how to be characterize the enhanced cooperation. COMMENT -------------- ¶9. (C) The hardline rhetoric coming out of Skopje on the name issue should be evaluated in terms of the current pre-campaign posturing of the government, and as an attempt to shore up the government's nationalist credentials if it is going to negotiate with Athens from a position of strength either before the June 1 elections or after a new government is formed. On border demarcation, we will work with the GOM to walk them back from their insistence on demarcating the four possibly contentious areas of the border first. We will also explore a compromise approach (one easy piece, one hard piece),followed by recognition as a more effective way of getting Pristina to move quickly on demarcating the rest of the border. MILOVANOVIC