Abstract
Since 2001, the Republic of Macedonia had gone through several waves of international and national actions, which resulted in requests of the international community, primarily by the European Union, for systemic reform processes. The first wave came with the Ohrid Agreement, which brought armed ethnic-based conflict to an end. The second one emerged due to the usual association and accession commitments of a candidate state since 2005 and implementation of the Road Map for Visa Liberalisation between February 2008 and July 2009. The third wave came out of a severe political crisis in 2015, which had revealed a series of systemic and democratic deficiencies – from illegal interception of communications and political pressure against the judiciary, to violations of media freedoms and principles of fair elections. In June 2015, a Senior Expert’s Group summarised a set of recommendations for the European Commissions in a document titled: Urgent Reform Priorities for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. This paper analyzes Macedonian slow path of reforms, affected by deficient inter-ethnic confidence, political tensions, decentralisation, administrative and political culture in the Macedonia and shortcomings within the of the rule of law.
Highlights
At the time of declaration of independence, the country was economically weak and still had to establish state structures and ensure rule of law
In 1990, very few citizens of Macedonia believed that their republic would be able to survive the separation from Yugoslavia, due to its, at the time, systemic deficiencies and due to the fact that Macedonian Albanians did not appear to be overly entusiastic to live in an independent state maily ruled by Macedonians, i.e. Macedonian Slavs (Richard, 2003, p. 404; Cowan and Brown, 2000, pp. 1-28; Philips, 2004, pp. 48-79)
The early 1990s in the new state were marked with serious lack of interethnic confidence, often resulting in riots and increasing demands for increased participation of Macedonian Albanians in the state structures and insisting on a possibility for education in Albanian language, which escalated in the case of first attempt of opening the Tetovo university1 in part of the country mainly populated by Albanians in 1994 (Bumci, 2001, p. 34-36)
Summary
At the time of declaration of independence, the country was economically weak and still had to establish state structures and ensure rule of law. The conflict ended after an extensive international intervention led by EU’s representatives Xavier Solana and Lord Robertson, and US envoys Francois Leotard and James Pardew They mediated brokering of the Ohrid Peace Agreement, which has been envisging introduction of Albanian language into official use and into the system of education, increase of number of Albanians in the public services and administrative decentralisation 2) In February 2001, a conflict broke out in the village of Tanuševci near the border, after Belgrade agreed with Skopje that this village of some 400 people, mainly Albanians, should be a part of Macedonia on basis of the bilateral border agreement This agreement will remain a source of tensions between leaders of Macedonian Albanians and Slav dominated Macedonian authorities throughout 2003 as well. 3) Text of the Ohrid Peace Agreement available on: http://www.coe.int/t/e/legal_ affairs/legal_co-operation/police_and_internal_security/OHRID%20Agreement%20 13august2001.asp viewed on 15 September 2016
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