Nationalities Papers, issued by Cambridge University Press, has published a paper from UN mediator Matthew Nimetz on the Macedonian name issue.

In it, Nimetz writes that five names were considered in the run up to what became the Prespa treaty, when Macedonia was pressured to adopt the name “North Macedonia”.

In my set of suggestions to the parties of January 17, 2018 that initiated the final and successful rounds of the negotiations, the parties were urged to consider five names: North Macedonia, Upper Macedonia, Macedonia-Skopje, Vardar Macedonia (the Vardar River runs through the country), and Nova Macedonia (suggested by Vance in 1993 and reject by both sides at the time). Other names might work too, but let’s focus our efforts on these five, we urged. Each one had a problem, of course, and had to be assessed in the Macedonian language… . Eventually Skopje opted for Republic of North Macedonia in the final days leading up to Prespa, Nimetz writes. The option of “Ilinden Macedonia” which was promoted by Zoran Zaev ahead of the signing of the treaty, and which was used as a basis to get Macedonia to agree that the “new name” is used in all circumstances, is not mentioned.

Nimetz acknowledges that this principle, which Greece referred to as erga omnes, was adopted to Macedonia’s detriment.

I had suggested over many years that any new name should be used internationally and that the constitutional name Republic of Macedonia continue to be used internally. Many nations have such a dual name system: Finland/Suomi, Ireland/Eire, lbania/Shqipëria; indeed, Greece itself uses Greece internationally but Hellas (or Ellas) internally (and sometimes Hellenic Republic, a third name). The dual name system would have advantages in terms of public acceptability in the northern neighbor, and also would probably not require a constitutional amendment, a difficult process. The Greeks were adamant, however, that the name needed to be applied erga omnes, one name for all purposes. I slowly came to agree for three reasons: first, the Greeks would not move on their insistence on erga omnes; second, having two names would lead to years of bickering about whether an application was domestic or international; third, given the aspiration of Skopje to join the European Union, it was obvious that within the EU there is no real distinction between what is domestic and what applies throughout the EU.. This was a tough concession for Skopje, but it finally acquiesced to the erga omnes application of the new name, which required extensive constitutional changes that almost killed approval of the Prespa Agreement during the ratification process, Nimetz writes.

The imposed name was rejected by the citizens at a referendum but was eventually rammed through Parliament using arrests, blackmail and bribery to get members of Parliament to vote in favor. Nimetz notes how world leaders welcomed this outcome that will lead Macedonia into NATO and possibly the European Union, but glosses over the way the amendments were adopted.