George Stamkoski, Managing Director, Volatile Media Ltd, UK – Written Evidence (BUB0024)

This submission focuses on how a supportive and fruitful bilateral relationship between a post-Brexit United Kingdom and a non-EU Republic of Macedonia could enhance the status of both countries in the wider Balkans.

Heeding the lessons of Balkan history

1. During the 20th century, Great Britain’s complex history in southeast Europe involved participation in several pivotal conflicts. It made its presence felt as a bulwark among Allied Forces in the Balkan Campaigns against the Central Powers in World Wars I and Axis Powers in World War II, through Churchill’s support of royalist forces in the 1946-49 Greek Civil War, as well as by appointing high level negotiators Lord Carrington and Lord Owen while putting boots on the ground to deliver aid as UN peacekeepers during the genocide in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina from 1991 to 1995. Britain was also a proactive partner in the Nato defence of Kosovo in 1999 under Tony Blair, which inspired some Kosovars to subsequently name their new-born boys Tonibler. And it was Lord Robertson as Nato Secretary-General who led the United Kingdom’s ongoing Balkan commitment into the 21st century by mediating in the short civil war between ethnic Albanians and Macedonians that ended with the signing of the Ohrid Framework Agreement in 2001.
2. These past conflicts may not seem immediately relevant to enhancing post-Brexit Britain’s future relationships with the Republic of Macedonia and other Balkan states outside the European Union. Yet it cannot be overstated that an acute understanding of Balkan history (and Britain’s role within it) will be indispensible in helping to forge stable democracies across southeast Europe, without which lasting regional ties cannot be credibly contemplated.

Recipe for a failed state

3. Even though it is indisputable that a failed state is a recipe for regional instability and cannot be a reliable partner in prosperity, it is no exaggeration to say that the Republic of Macedonia has been allowed to become a failed state and now desperately needs more help than it is already getting from Britain, the European Union and the USA.
4. Living in a country that has been frustratingly knocking on the door of the EU since it voted for and then gained independence from former Yugoslavia in 1991, many of Macedonia’s two million citizens feel that Europe has left them in the lurch. When Macedonia received relatively little EU assistance to manage a growing refugee crisis over the last two years, disappointment turned to exasperation with the very EU that most citizens openly claim they are eager to join. Among ethnic Macedonian citizens, the crisis reinforced a sense of being victims of history, surrounded by hostile neighbours Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece, which played its part in fuelling a broadly felt insecurity by successfully blocking both EU and Nato membership over a long-standing but little understood dispute over who has the right to use the name “Macedonia”.
5. Skopje’s precarious post-independence path to democracy has thus been braved in a constant state of political crises marked by high unemployment rates (mirroring those of Greece at between 22 and 35 percent), decades of economic deprivation, and rampant corruption linked to criminal structures that have infiltrated government and industry at all levels. Amid alarming rates of depression and a youth drain with over 20 per cent of the population leaving the country, a numbing despair has given false hope in some quarters, encouraged by nationalists and sweetened by the prospect of cheap natural gas, that fellow Slavs in Orthodox Russia can be Macedonia’s only saviours.
6. These ingredients have all played their part in a toxic mix prompting regularly resurging ethnic tensions that have fostered xenophobia and induced a slow but steady cultural stagnation. Since being elected to power in 2008, the recently ousted nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party has linked people’s frustration and dissatisfaction to historical grievances (inspired by Slobodan Milosevic’s late 20th century nationalist strategy in Serbia) to nurture a sense of victimisation and fear of a loss of identity. This has served to keep it in power for over a decade with the promise of protection, while allowing leaders to comprehensively plunder and commit the state to high debt levels that will heavily burden future generations.
7. Following a bitter six month struggle to form a government after elections in December 2016, one culminating in ugly scenes on 27 April 2017 when nationalist led mobs ransacked the parliament in Skopje and threatened to kill MPs after the swearing in of an ethnic Albanian speaker, the new coalition of social-democratic party SDSM and ethnic Albanian parties is now staging a concerted push towards Euro-Atlantic integration. Yet even though Skopje won supportive EU assessments after extending the hand of friendship to all of its neighbours, the prospect of Macedonia gaining Nato membership is still hampered by Greece’s veto. Even the reward of joining the European Union has been pushed well into the next decade, by which time Britain seems likely to have also become a non-EU state. 

Re-investing cultural and political capital

8. The UK can leverage considerable cultural and political capital to win friends in and influence Macedonia, where a well educated population is oriented toward the west and English is fast becoming the lingua franca.
9. Prior to independence in 1991, most Macedonian citizens welcomed comments by visiting British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd, when he said that the Republic of Macedonia “made a convincing case for recognition” despite vociferous Greek objections. In early 1994, when Greece slapped what ended up being a crippling two year oil embargo on landlocked Macedonia over the adoption of the Star of Vergina as its national flag and use of the name Macedonia, people felt a sense of protection when Hurd accused Greece of “holding the rest of the EU to hostage” with “unreasonable behaviour” towards its northern neighbour.
10. Macedonians were ultimately disappointed when Britain played realpolitik by following other EU member states in chastising Greece but ultimately bowing to its unreasoned veto over EU and Nato membership. At the time, Hurd cited a reluctance to inflame Hellenist public opinion by “adding a Greek problem to the Macedonian problem".
11. A quarter of a century later, both these countries’ problems have not only remained unresolved, but have been exacerbated by a refugee crisis extending into a contiguous block of variously failed Balkan states from Athens across Skopje to Tirana, Pristina, Sarajevo and Belgrade. Indeed, this is a failed region where human trafficking often goes unchecked and criminal networks have been highly successful in exploiting the region’s democratic deficits.
12. In the lead up to the Brexit referendum, there was a surprising level of support for the out campaign among Macedonia’s citizens. This was also the case among many Greeks, who regularly attack the EU but have so far proved too afraid of the consequences to vote their way out of it. These parallel paradoxes stem from both country’s own frustrations with the EU, linked to a belief that Britain could become a powerful and more supportive friend in realising its declared aim of forging new alliances outside the EU. What is also worth noting in both countries, is that developing closer ties with Britain is clearly seen as a more attractive and palatable proposition than being drawn to Russia, which has often shown that it is prepared to use its natural gas supplies as a bargaining chip in Europe.

The rewards of success versus the high cost of failure

13. Having squandered political capital in the past, Britain can avoid letting history repeat itself. Importantly, the UK can continue to be inventive in helping Macedonia to seek opportunity in crisis and become a model free market democracy in the heart of the Balkans. Even though other Balkan countries outside the EU face common challenges on the road to becoming peaceful and prosperous democratic states, there are good reasons for devoting resources towards ensuring success at the epicentre in the historical crossroad of Macedonia, through which past empires have always had to pass.
14. Firstly, Macedonia’s citizens can be relied upon to be willing and able players in any regional efforts to support peace, stability and prosperity. It would not be demeaning to state that they are desperate for these rewards. This small country would readily serve as a voluntary laboratory for innovative strategies in developing modern democracies. The population’s diverse ethnic, religious and linguistic mix (comprising Macedonians, Albanians, Roma, Turks, Vlachs, Serbs, Bosniaks and others) qualifies it as a perfect focus group of two million people representing the ethnicities and strata of society living across the Balkans.
15. If a novel approach to nurturing democracy works in Macedonia, it can be customised for success in the wider Balkan neighbourhood. If it doesn’t succeed one hundred per cent, fine tuning a strategy is a low cost option. Pilot projects can be funded very competitively even if wages increased to twice the current minimum of some 200 Euros per month, among the lowest in Europe.
16. In the same way that some African regions have been able to technologically leapfrog from having poor or non-existent fixed line telephone systems to installing high-tech fibre optics and buying into advanced mobile telephony infrastructures, Macedonia’s underdevelopment can be an advantage. It can not only leapfrog from antiquated systems to state-of-the-art technologies in a fast track manner, but also leapfrog from a disadvantaged post-communist state to a model free market democracy.
17. During Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev’s visit to Tel Aviv in September 2017, he sought to build on the expertise of Macedonia’s IT workforce to deepen existing ties to Israel’s high-tech industries. The goal is to emulate Israel in becoming a high-tech powerhouse that can punch above its weight within and beyond its neighbourhood. British IT company Endava has already taken the lead and set up a major hub in Skopje to capitalise on the capital’s 6,000 ITC workers and 800 annual graduates in computer science.
18. Secondly, in an unlikely but not unfeasible scenario whereby the EU, UK and USA was to lose influence in Macedonia following a collapse in democracy and a resurgence of dictatorial rule, Russia, Turkey and Serbia are well positioned to assert their own undemocratic sway. Moscow still has a fairly solid foothold in Belgrade with which it has been able to counter EU influence. If recent accusations of Russian-inspired coup and assassination attempts prior to Montenegro joining Nato prove true, it would prove Moscow’s readiness to exploit regional instability and political dissatisfaction to further its geostrategic goals in the Balkans.
19. Allowing a country with dubious democratic credentials to spread its influence in the Balkans would undermine western Europe’s efforts to bring the region under its umbrella. This should also be born in mind in relation to Turkey under the Erdogan dictatorship. Turkey has strong historical, political and economic ties with both Macedonia and Bosnia. Ankara has been able to exploit these ties in its tussles with the EU over the refugee crisis, as well as to exert geostrategic leverage over its historical foe Greece.
20. Thirdly, it would be fair to surmise that a criminally inspired nationalist relapse and outbreak of armed inter-ethnic conflict in Macedonia would suck in neighbouring states and turn the Balkans into a Pandora’s box. The fact that the combined defence capabilities of western European and north American were unable to pre-empt and prevent the spread of a succession of wars in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia since the nineties makes a clear case for pursuing rigorous preventive strategies in a still volatile region.
21. It was for good reasons that the UN set up UNPREDEP in March 1995, the first preventive deployment mission in Macedonia, while war was still raging in Bosnia. Made up of US and Nordic battalions, UNPREDEP’s mission was to pre-empt a spillover of  Bosnia’s conflict into Macedonia. In UN-speak this involved monitoring and reporting “any developments in the border areas which could undermine confidence and stability in the country and threaten its territory.” Though it was lauded as a success story at the time, UNPREDEP’s extension was vetoed by China in early 1999 when Macedonia recognised Taiwan. It was the not the first time that Macedonia had to pay an unfair price exacted by big power realpolitik.

The US versus the European diplomatic, economic and military stance in Macedonia

22. The more muscular US approach to maintaining influence in Macedonia and preventing a security vacuum serves to complement rather than compete with what one might call a softer EU approach. As early as February 1994, the USA gained solid political capital in Skopje when it ignored Greece’s objections and formally recognized Macedonia under it’s constitutional name. On the other hand, the EU still sticks to the formula “former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, and Britain has thus far toed the EU line on this issue. Athens insisted on this provisional formula as a pre-condition for recognising Skopje. Yet few have understood that it was construed to deny the existence of a separate Macedonian identity by implying that President Tito invented it solely to bring what Greeks refer to as Slavophones into his Yugoslav federation.
23. This and related disputes based on conflicting views of history have remained unresolved for 26 years and denied Macedonia both EU and Nato membership, which most citizens see as the only credible guarantors of peace. It was thus viewed as an expression of solidarity when the USA and Macedonia signed a Strategic Partnership and Mutual Cooperation accord in 2008 which underlined Washington’s commitment to Balkan security. The USA is now also supporting Macedonia’s bid to put the name issue with Greece aside and allow it to gain Nato membership under the provisional name FYROM, whose original purpose, after all, was to not allow the name dispute to block progress on important political, economic and security matters.  
24. Together with its European allies, the USA also condemned the initiators of the 2001 insurgency led by ethnic Albanians in Macedonia. They jointly supported negotiations for a peaceful political solution that was formalised in the Ohrid Framework Agreement that same year. Right up until the present day, the EU and USA have closely coordinated their efforts to support full adherence to the provisions of the Framework Agreement. Most recently in mid September 2017, all parties worked closely with the new coalition government to draft and propose a new language law aimed at strengthening provisions to counter ethnic discrimination within administrational structures, the education system and other areas to be reviewed by a special commission.
25. Since the early nineties, the US has added further muscle to its diplomacy in Macedonia by funding a raft of programmes either directly or through USAID in partnership with diverse NGOs. Support has extended to providing assistance for projects aimed at strengthening democracy, economic reform and development, defence reforms, judiciary and the rule of law, education, public health resources, decentralisation, small-scale infrastructure projects, plus capacities to fight crime and human trafficking.
26. Crucially, the government aid agency USAID and diverse US NGOs have also supported training schemes for professional journalism, investigative reporting, satirical news programmes and other media projects. These have informed and entertained Macedonian TV audiences while reinforcing the various areas of US support.

Shaping a post-Brexit UK policy in the Balkans

27. In marking out a different form and style of diplomacy to that of the EU, post-Brexit UK could look at the multi-level approach with which the US has wielded influence in Macedonia. Whilst the UK cannot commit the same levels of financial resources as the USA, it can look to shaping a new approach by complementing US efforts. This would be particularly valuable if the current administration under US President Trump acts on proposals to drastically cut back on US democracy advocacy funding abroad. If any future cutbacks are not compensated for by the UK, the EU and other stakeholders, there is a real risk that past efforts to promote peace, democracy and prosperity in the Balkans can be reversed to the detriment of southeast Europe, the EU and the UK, whether it is within or outside the union.
28. Post-Brexit UK can successfully cement and build on meaningful cultural and economic ties with Macedonia by drawing lessons from it’s colonial history while wielding the considerable diplomatic resources that colonialism has bequeathed it. As a model poli-cultural democracy, Britain is well placed to act as an enlightened enabler of multi-ethnic states functioning within the knowledge societies of the future. 
29. As a potentially effective tool in the complex arsenal of strategies needed to achieve such desirable goals, Britain can lead the way in supporting efforts to launch an updated version of a tried and tested platform that can serve as a pilot project in Macedonia and be adapted in and beyond the Balkans:

A model virtual truth and reconciliation process across the Balkans

30. The arguments for initiating a Balkan-wide truth and reconciliation process are compelling: Firstly, Yugoslavia’s violent disintegration in the 1990s has surely taught us that the political, economic and cultural paralysis that we are sadly still seeing across the Balkans cannot be cured by sweeping history under the carpet, but by sweeping it out from under the carpet. As paradoxical as it sounds, looking the past in the eye will be key to visioning and shaping the future. This is just as true in the Balkans as it is in the UK and anywhere else where neighbouring people’s conflicting views of a common history are a barrier to maintaining stable and prosperous societies.
31. Secondly, the low cost of empowering such an insurance policy against conflict is negligible when weighed up against the cost of funding wartime peacekeeping and post war reconstruction operations. 22 years after the signing of the Dayton peace agreement in Bosnia-Hercegovina, 18 years after the Nato-led mission bombed Serbs to the Kosovo negotiating table and the signing of the Kumanovo Treaty, 16 years after the Framework Agreement halted the inter-ethnic war in Macedonia, the ongoing trans-regional postwar reconstruction efforts continue to exact a heavy price, not just in terms of the economic cost, but also on the Balkan psyche.
32. Thirdly, in the current era marked by turbulent global developments, years of market volatility and great uncertainty, there is both an imperative and an opportunity to break with the past and win new constituencies for a fresh and enlightened re-evaluation of our past in order to shape a better future. We are living in an era where electorates have surprised analysts by voting against traditional but failed attitudes. Following this zeitgeist, most citizens of the Balkans would welcome, support and participate in a broad and open dialogue over unresolved historical grievances. They would be motivated by a willingness to move forward rather than remain backward. One can definitely count on a sizeable Coalition of the Willing to kick start and move such a process forward. Presented in an honest and transparent way, it would be like pushing against an open door.
33. And fourthly, managing such a process virtually would make it both effective and cost-effective. It would involve soliciting inspirational ideas, approaches, policies and strategies, not just from politicians, but from all walks of life. It could engage thinkers and doers, movers and shakers, artists and musicians, teachers and preachers, learners and those willing to learn more. Endorsement and support could be secured from governments, private and corporate backers, as well as from non-governmental organisations, the UN, EU and other world bodies.
34. A virtual truth and reconciliation process wired up for the 21st century could use all available means of communication and dissemination. It can harness the traditional broadcast media of TV, radio and print, as well as new social media tools operating in a “narrowcast” mode. This is sometimes referred to as a 360 degree approach. Key to success would be the adoption of a holistic approach in seeking cross-border solutions. This stems from the recognition that it is impossible to resolve one nation’s grievances without simultaneously addressing those of all neighbouring nations using the same values, standards and criteria. An approach which fails to adopt such high standards will inevitably be handicapped because it would be regarded as an unfair application of double standards at best, or as proof of hypocrisy at worst. 
35. I believe this vision is not just wishful thinking. It should be seen as both a political imperative and a moral obligation. Managed in a visionary way, a supportive alliance of techies could be empowered to placing at our disposal innovative digital technologies and novel media formats which can harvest user-generated content and allow messages to go viral in any desired language. Local IT, organisational and networking personnel could be paid more than is customary in their region but less than in western countries. This would help make projects cost-effective while setting an example for win-win relationships between employers and employees.
36. Implementing a prototype virtual truth and reconciliation process, for example, between ethnic Albanians and Macedonians, or Greeks and Macedonians, can later be a model for further projects focussing on relations between other immediate neighbours across the Balkans. This can in turn be adapted in other regions across and beyond Europe.
37. Now and in the post-Brexit Europe that will emerge, Great Britain can use its colonial past and history of diplomatically punching above its weight to its advantage. It can draw on its respectability as a mother of invention and champion of industry, its global cultural credibility in the areas of film, TV, media, music, art and fashion, not to mention its unchallengeable position as the birthplace of the Anglosphere, to be a truth and reconciliation mentor, from which much good can come.

Submitted 26 September 2017