Greece Presents Counter-Arguments Before World Court

Greek delegation in the International Court of Justice | Photo by: ICJ

In its opening arguments on Thursday, Athens rejected Skopje's claims that it broke the 1995 bilateral UN accord by blocking Macedonia from joining NATO in 2008, the source of the suit.

The 1995 UN-brokered Interim Accord, which regulates relations between the two states, obliges Athens not to block the accession of its neighbour to international organisations.

Greece’s lawyers insisted that this was not the case and that despite Greece’s objections to the country’s official name, Republic of Macedonia, the decision not to invite the country was reached by NATO as a whole.

Macedonia, which presented its arguments on Monday and Tuesday, said that by its conduct Greece “ deliberately and unequivocally violated that obligation”, citing examples of how Athens publicly opposed and lobbied against Skopje joining NATO.

The Greek side on Thursday also argued that the International Court of Justice could not rule on the validity of a NATO decision.

Presenting the joint communiqué after the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest as evidence, the head of the Greek team, Maria Telalian, suggested that “the court has no jurisdiction” over decisions reached by NATO.

Lawyers for Greece told the Court that Macedonia had violated the UN accord in the first place by waging an irredentist policy and stealing Greek national symbols and heroes.

Macedonia’s renaming of its main airport in Skopje after the ancient warrior king Alexander the Great, as well as the naming of its main highway after his father Philip of Macedon “are not in the spirit of good neighbourly relations” the Greek side argued.

Moreover, its lawyers presented parts of an 2008 interview of the then Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski to support Greece's claim that Macedonia did not stick to its obligation from the Accord that stipulates the use of its UN reference, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, FYROM, when applying for membership in international organisations.

Macedonia agreed to use this reference abroad in the early 1990s in order to avoid a Greek blockade against its UN entry.

The defence argued that the president’s interview, in which he says that Macedonia should work on encouraging more countries to recognise its official name, shows that Skopje is in fact trying to avoid reaching a settlement with Athens within the UN led name talks.

The first phase of the public hearing will end on Friday after Greece completes its second day of arguments.
 
The Macedonian team will then have the opportunity to respond orally to Greece's defense on March 28, and the oral hearing will end with closing remarks by the Greek side on March 30.

After this the court will recess to reach its ruling, which given previous experience is expected within six months or by year's end.

The ICJ ruling is final and binding for UN member-states and parties in the dispute. However the ICJ has no practical means of enforcing the countries to comply with its ruling.

Macedonia insists that its lawsuit is not about its ongoing name dispute with Greece, but was filed simply because Skopje believes that Athens violated the Interim Accord by blocking its membership to NATO.

As the ICJ case gets underway, UN-mediated negotiations over the name dispute continue with little hope for a breakthrough.

Greece insists that the name Macedonia of its northern neighbor implies territorial claims against its province with the same name.

Macedonia, on the other hand, argues that it would damage its identity if it changed its name.

As part of the political efforts for overcoming the gridlock, Macedonian and Greek prime ministers, Nikola Gruevski and George Papandreou, met briefly in Brussels on Thursday.

Despite exchanging pleasantries, both sides said that there has been no significant changes in their positions over the name.