The failure of the Macedonian referendum on the simultaneous adhesion of Macedonia to NATO and the European Union registers the poor opinion that the Citizens of the former Yugoslav republic have about the two “Western” entities, also it reflects the deep crisis that NATO and ‘EU are going through.
In some ways, the referendum wanted by Scopje, with the interest of Merkel and Stoltenberg, is a kind of bad wish for the difficult elections for the renewal of the European Parliament to be held in May next year.
This “fiasco” was to be expected. Most probably, the main mistake was to have both the adhesion to the North Atlantic Treaty and the adhesion to the European Union be voted in a single referendum. If there were two separate referendums, the turnout would certainly have been diversified and the results were different.
However, NATO membership was perceived by the population as a risk, as it would have brought little Macedonia into a very complex geostrategic game in which the main actors are, as noted, Russia and the USA. Without, however, counting the economic expenditure that the Government would have to take on to support the commitment of membership to the North Atlantic Organization. The latest statement by President Trump on the NATO crisis is another element that has helped to substantially defect the polls.
As for membership of the European Union, the citizens of the small Balkan republic, once inclined to link their economic destiny to that of Brussels, Strasbourg and Frankfurt, have had to take into account the treatment that the EU has reserved for friends / enemies of Athens in recent years, the Brexit and, above all, the anti-European breeze that runs through the societies of the current members of the EU, in particular of the founding countries ones.
Tiberio Graziani is a Chiarman of Vision & Global Vision. International Institute for Global Analyses.