MACEDONIAN PM: CURRENT NIMETZ PROPOSAL WILL NOT

C O N F I D E N T I A L USNATO 000372

NOFORN
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/13/2018
TAGS: PREL MARR NATO MK
SUBJECT: MACEDONIAN PM: CURRENT NIMETZ PROPOSAL WILL NOT
PASS PUBLIC SCRUTINY

Classified By: Ambassador Kurt Volker for reasons
1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C/NF) Summary: Macedonian Prime Minister Gruevski told
Ambassador Volker on October 15 that he has problems
accepting the current Nimetz ideas for solving the name issue
as a basis for negotiation. He said the Nimetz proposal
would only improve marginally during a negotiation process,
and not enough to succeed in a national referendum.
Ambassador Volker cautioned that European sympathy for
Macedonia would wane if Macedonia, rather than Greece, began
to appear to be the obstacle to progress, and warned that
accession to NATO would become harder if the name issue is
not solved soon. End Summary.


2. (C/NF) Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski visited
NATO October 15 to discuss Macedonia's Euro-Atlantic
aspirations with Ambassador Volker. Gruevski highlighted
Macedonia's ongoing reforms, and thanked the United States
for its support for Macedonian membership in NATO. He said
that Greek opposition to Macedonian progress had hardened
since the Bucharest Summit. Gruevski illustrated this with
the example that the Slovenian Presidency of the European
Union in June 2008 had briefed him that Greece had torpedoed
otherwise unanimous EU consensus on accession talks for
Macedonia.


3. (C/NF) Turning to the Nimetz talks, Gruevski said that
public and commentator opinion on the latest Nimetz proposal
had been very negative, and he felt that he may have to
reject this proposal as a basis for negotiation. Gruevski
said the current Nimetz proposal could not be the basis for
negotiation as it would only improve marginally during a
negotiation process. Any outcome that started with the
current proposal would not evolve enough in the right
direction to survive a national referendum in Macedonia.
Gruevski also said he needed to find an additional reason to
pitch a name solution to the Macedonian people, as future
NATO and EU membership would not convince the public to back
a change in the name of the country.


4. (C/NF) Ambassador Volker acknowledged the challenges in
appealing to the electorate, but cautioned that the
post-Bucharest summit good feeling for Macedonia would wane
if Macedonia, rather than Greece, began to appear to be the
obstacle to progress. Volker said that the essence of
Macedonian identity would never change, regardless of a
negotiation, and reminded Gruevski that Americans and
Europeans would always think of Macedonians as Macedonians
independent of any piece of paper on the name issue. He
thought that Macedonia stood at a strategic crossroads and
that the best future for Macedonia lay inside NATO and the
EU, rather than outside. The Ambassador advised Gruevski to
find an answer to Nimetz that was not "no," and suggested he
look at alternatives that would outline which parts of the
proposal could be acceptable to the Macedonian side. Such an
approach could continue to pressure the Greeks, and reduce
the risks of Macedonia being portrayed as the reason a deal
has not been reached. If Macedonia was seen as a reasonable
actor, then we could approach some EU countries to help urge
the Greeks to allow Macedonian accession both to NATO and the
EU. Finally, Volker cautioned that it would become harder to
integrate Macedonia into NATO if the issue dragged on past
NATO's December 2-3 Foreign Ministerial. Ratification would
not be possible in some countries in less than the four
months remaining before the Strasbourg-Kehl summit, and
Macedonia would miss the current round of enlargement.
Future questions about Macedonia's preparedness could be
raised, and it was in Macedonia's interest to get in now.


5. (C/NF) Gruevski thanked Ambassador Volker and promised to
consider his views. He pledged to do his best to win NATO and
EU membership. He then raised an issue of the alleged
detention by Greek police of Macedonian journalists who had
been covering protests by ethnic Macedonians in Greece. The
Ambassador cautioned that it would be best to keep a calm
public demeanor over the incident and to let the Greeks be
embarrassed by their own action, and use this as an example
of why these ethnic issues should be put in the past.
REID