North Macedonia’s soft diplomacy Transition of the Prespa Dialogue Forum from a Branded Foreign Policy Idea into Reality 16 pages, pdf  Download Back

 North Macedonia’s soft diplomacy Transition of the Prespa Dialogue Forum from a Branded Foreign Policy Idea into Reality

Publisher: Friedrich-Ebert-Stifung

Volume: 16 pages, pdf

Description:

Since it proclaimed independence in 1992, the Republic of North Macedonia’s sovereignty and right to existence has been constantly brought into question by its neighbours. Greece posed the dominant problem, seriously limiting North Macedonia’s international interactions and struggle for recognition, because it questioned whether the new state should be entitled to any identity that may be related or connected with ancient Macedonia. After a dispute that lasted three decades and required struggling against coercive diplomatic intrusions by its neighbours, the Republic of Macedonia changed its constitutional name into the Republic of North Macedonia when its Social Democratic Prime Minister Zoran Zaev signed the Prespa Agreement with the Greek Prime Minister at the time Alexis Tzipras. The non-invasive and cooperative foreign policy of North Macedonia’s current government reintroduced and reaffirmed pacifist and collaborative foreign policy practices that resulted in the Prespa Forum Initiative.

This is the context within which this paper aims to contribute to understanding the level to which the imperative of good neighbourly relations can be applied by the state formed within the Vardar Macedonia region, a non-European Union country within a rather hostile environment where bilateral issues are converted into multilateral disputes. The analytical method includes interviews, conference materials, media content analysis, and a review of relevant documents.