Summary

• Macedonia has managed to maintain internal stability and independence through a tumultuous decade. It now has to face crucial issues threatening the country's social peace, prosperity, and further integration into the European economy. These include establishing a more modern, civic democracy; increasing transparency and efficiency in governance; and addressing endemic corruption and public cynicism.
• Individual human rights form the basis of modern democracy, and a citizen's ability to exercise these rights is a test of rule of law. Macedonia's gravitation toward institutionalizing group rights reflects the failure to promote and protect individual rights. Macedonia's ethnic minority communities believe that the state favors the ethnic Macedonian majority. Until this situation is remedied, progress on other fronts is difficult to envision.
• Decentralization of governance, coupled with transparency and public accountability of administration, could help ameliorate ethnic tensions in Macedonia and increase governmental efficiency. At present, local administrative units are too small to function efficiently. New, larger, administrative units should not be drawn on an ethnic, but rather administratively logical, basis.
• Weak institutions in Macedonia have allowed systemic cronyism and corruption, undermining public confidence and fostering general cynicism and lack of respect for the law. This subverts efforts to construct a functioning economy and deters investment. Building solid public institutions, rooting out corruption, and fostering accountability require leadership from civil society and the media that has hitherto been lacking.
• Macedonia suffered greatly during the past decade due to regional conflict and indirect effects of sanctions, which helped promote illegal commerce and corruption. Assistance from the international community, including the Security Pact for Southeast Europe, the European Union (EU), and the United States, has not fulfilled Macedonian expectations, inspired by promises of assistance especially during the Kosovo war. Macedonians nevertheless regard future EU membership as indispensable. This gives the European Union enormous influence, if it sends consistent signals.
• From Macedonia's perspective, NATO is a positive factor in the region and the solution to the problem of "hard security" for the country. Despite widespread opposition among ethnic Macedonians to the 1999 NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia, and episodes of friction with NATO forces, there is a resilient desire across a broad spectrum of political and civil society to join the alliance. There is also a growing consensus across ethnic groups that, from a Macedonian security standpoint, Kosovo's final status is of less importance than whether it is prosperous, open, and democratic.
• Responsibility for Macedonia's internal democratic and institutional development rests with those citizens who have the vision and willingness to advocate the changes necessary. However, the West has an abiding interest in Macedonia's progress, and should invest in promoting civic values and public accountability.

About the Report

This report is based on the Workshop on Future Issues for Macedonia, co-sponsored by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) and the United States Institute of Peace and held in Mavrovo, Macedonia, on October 20-22, 2000.

The report was drafted prior to the outbreak of fighting in Macedonia. Nonetheless, the issues discussed herein remain fundamental to Macedonia's future.

The workshop was co-chaired by Daniel Serwer, director of the Institute's Balkans Initiative, and Deborah Alexander, director of NDI's Central and East European Programs. The workshop brought together more than twenty citizens of Macedonia from across the ethnic and political spectrum, including members of civil society. The panel chairs and speakers at the two-day meeting were Keith Brown of Brown University, Victor Friedman of the University of Chicago, Brenda Pearson of the International Crisis Group, and Serwer. This report reflects the discussion at the conference--the areas of consensus as well as the areas of disagreement. The report was written by Kurt Bassuener, program officer in the Balkans Initiative.

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect views of the United States Institute of Peace or the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, which do not advocate specific policies.