Was the EU's Role in Conflict Management in Macedonia a Success?

Abstract

This article explores the EU's role in ethnic conflict management in Macedonia—once a favourite success story, now a case whose outcome appears increasingly uncertain. Through a historic and conceptual overview of the relations between EU/EEC and the Republic of Macedonia, this study analyses whether the EU's intervention can be considered a success. The paper examines the impact of the EU during the pre-conflict period, in the armed conflict in 2001 itself, in shaping the mediation effort leading to the Ohrid Framework Agreement, and in the management of the post-conflict phase. The EU's role as a power broker in de-escalating the armed conflict in 2001 and in securing the Ohrid Agreement occurred, it is argued, because of the EU's promotion of a perception that Macedonia had a clear perspective for EU membership. The prolonged stalemate in the accession process between Macedonia and the EU since the agreement has induced widespread scepticism about the credibility of the EU's incentives for compliance and the good faith of the EU as a conflict manager, thus threatening to destabilize Ohrid.