The Confederal Trap

That the removal of the mine fields Balkan states laid on their common borders has not started, is obviously no obstacle to visionaries who are planning and redrawing the contours of a Balkan federation and confederation.

Apart from some unsuccessful projects, like the Moslem-Croat federation and all union options with Bosnian Serb controlled territory, the visions focus on Macedonia.

Increasingly frequent offers of Balkan alliances meet with a large dose of reservation in Skoplje. Recently, the Nova Makedonija daily said something is wrong when Skoplje gets similar offers from Serbia and Albania; two neighbors with completely different political and strategic interests.

In the summer of 1992, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic told Greek Antena TV: "I am convinced that a Greek-Yugoslav federation would be a great factor of regional stability."

The same idea was brought up in more detail during last year's meeting between Milosevic and Greek leftist coalition leader Nikos Konstandopulous. The Greek media reported than that the federation would start with the FRY, Macedonia and Greece and expand to include Bulgaria and Romania.

A little later, Milosevic came to Athens and some circles interpreted his latest idea (December 1994) as a diplomatic bomb. Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou called the idea an interesting proposal he had never heard of before. The Athens press went wild, imagining the implications.

The Ethnos daily said the federation capital would be Athens, its first president a Greek and official language Greek. The Apogevmathini newspaper said the loose federation includes non-aggression treaties between Skoplje and Belgrade, Athens and Skoplje and a joint military headquarters in Thesaloniki. It said the federation's central bank would be based in Belgrade and a Balkan university in Skoplje. Some Greek media went even further saying the federation had the backing of Russian foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev. The whole idea is not unlike ideas voiced by the Byzantine Club in Belgrade which advocates linking up territories from Nicosia to Moscow. Former Greek foreign minister Samaras founded his Spring Party on similar ideas. Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic agreed with the idea in an interview to the Greek daily Eleftherotypos.

In Belgrade, comments were scanty. Some international law experts said the idea is not usual or reasonable. The proposal offers a confederation to Macedonia, which the FRY has not recognized and makes Greece the main partner although (unlike Macedonia) the FRY does not share a common border with it.

One of the basis of Macedonia's policies is equidistance from neighbors which means the republic can't have relations that are too friendly with any neighboring country. Counter to that policy by President Kiro Gligorov, the opposition claims Macedonia has to rely on friends in the region. Some mean Bulgaria, others mean Serbia, others want Russia. Some recent polls showed that about two thirds of the population don't want special relations with any neighbor. Just 12% feel Macedonia should have closer ties to Serbia and only 1.33% want close links to Bulgaria.

Prior to presidential and parliamentary elections in Macedonia last October, the presidential candidate of the nationalist opposition VMRO-DPMNE, Ljubisa Georgijevski, opposed Gligorov's policy with an idea for a confederation of Skoplje, Sofia and Belgrade. The idea was promoted at the end of the election campaign and explained with the need to create a dam against "Islamic fundamentalism and Albania's aggressive appetites". Later Georgijevski told a newspaper that the Balkan confederation idea was seven years older than De Gaulle's European union idea but added that it would not be achieved for another 30 years because of big power interests.

The latest union initiative came from Tirana last month (a Macedonia-Albania alliance). It was launched by the Kosovo daily Rilindja which is printed in Tirana. The daily said the idea came from Washington and was similar to the Moslem-Croat federation. Skoplje refused, allegedly because it doesn't want any kind of regional alliance and wants to join the EU.

Most of the ideas have several things in common; they're far from reality and were launched to see reactions, not only from Balkan states. From Skoplje's view, the fact that Macedonia is in the center of all current Balkan integration projects is a sure sign that the republic will become a bargaining chip once the war is over. Skoplje law professor Djordji Marjanovic said recently that the states have to recognize each other first, establish relations, define their interests.

What everyone agrees with is that in the last 3,000 years the roads through the Balkans haven't changed: the Danube, or the Via Ignatzia from Drac to the Aegean, and mainly the Belgrade-Thesaloniki road through the Vardar valley regardless of borders and blockades.

All the Combinations

Greece-FR Yugoslavia (most often seen as Greece-Serbia)

Greece-Macedonia-Serbia

Greece-Macedonia-Serbia (and Bulgaria-Romania later)

Greece-Serbia-Bosnian Serb Republic

Albania-Macedonia

Serbia-Bulgaria (includes division of Macedonia)

Serbia-Bulgaria-Macedonia

Serbia-Bulgaria-Macedonia (Romania-Greece later)