Observatoins on Macedonia

One of the less familiar guests at the Labour conference this year will be Vlado Buckovski, the youthful prime minister of Macedonia, who has been invited to Brighton by Tony Blair. Macedonia may be off most people's radar screens now, as at any other time, but it is close to pulling off a medium-sized miracle. In November and December, the European Commission and Council of Ministers will rule on whether this country of two million people can have a date for negotiations on EU membership. This is remarkable, given that only four years ago Macedonia was sliding towards civil war. The Albanians, who make up almost a third of the population, took to the hills with their guns before the EU and the US managed to bring the two sides to the negotiating table, where eventually they signed the Ohrid Agreement.

This has been a European success, with Albanian leaders exchanging fatigues for shirts and ties and now sitting happily as part of Buckovski's cabinet in Skopje. The integration of Albanians into the police, military and civil service has been accepted by the majority population, which is Slav, and for the first time Macedonian and Albanian students are studying together at a European-sponsored university in Tetovo, the main battleground in the civil war.

Macedonia's progress stands in sharp contrast to the lamentable situation of its neighbour, Kosovo. Six years of rule by the UN and a Nato-led peacekeeping force has left Albanians and Serbs (also Slavs) harbouring profound feelings of mutual distrust and enmity. Everyone in the Balkans is wondering how on earth to reconcile the two sides, as the EU and the US push for negotiations on what is called "the final status solution" (diplomatic code for how you get Serbia to accept Kosovo's idependence without starting another war).

One of the most powerful tools the EU possesses for persuading the Albanian Kosovars and Serbs to approach the issue in a cool and level-headed fashion is to demonstrate what happens in countries such as Macedonia that make the huge effort involved in finding ways of dealing with ethnic conflict and laying them to rest. Unfortunately, Macedonia (which is so small that it could be absorbed into the EU without anyone noticing) may yet fall under the wheels of the anti-enlargement EU juggernaut that has been gaining speed ever since the French

and Dutch referendums. Although aimed

almost exclusively at Turkey, this monster is likely to crush anything that gets in its way. Yet giving Macedonia a date on which to start negotiations for entry is an easy way for the EU to show that it has ways of encouraging peace and reconciliation that others don't.

The Blair government has done a tremendous amount to help stabilise Macedonia and put it on the path to prosperity. One last push this autumn could ensure the Ohrid Agreement was really worth it; and Buckovski's presence in Brighton is an encouraging sign.

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