Nicole Wyrsch: RESPECT AND TRUST

If you manage to increase the proportion of talks on substantial issues and to diminish the amount of pointless mutual accusations, debates would certainly be more valuable

Diplomats at Civil's conference: T. Navratil, K. Paulsen, S. Filippini, N. Wyrsch

The Swiss have been supporting in the past debates with different types of participants in Macedonia, and we’ve always felt that it would be nice if now Macedonians would take the initiative and organize themselves such open-ended debates. So, I wish to congratulate the organizers of this discussion today, and I also want to thank those who came - because, for dialogues to happen, it is first of all essential to have people who are ready to participate, who take their time and who have the courage to speak out openly and freely.

My further points relate to observations made whilst I was attending Swiss-supported political debates as an observer. First, even though we’ve always started with an agenda, respectively issues that we believed are of utmost importance for Macedonia and its citizens, we rarely ended up discussing much of it. So, at the end of those debates, I personally was often a bit frustrated, because 90 percent of our time was actually wasted on accusations and very little time was spent on substantial talks. According to surveys and to what I hear, the biggest concern of Macedonians is the economy, respectively unemployment. Despite this general recognition, we spent so to say no time discussing what could be done to fight this overwhelmingly important concern. I feel that, if the proportions of talking on substantial issues and of accusations would be reversed, such debates would certainly be more valuable. It is of course difficult for politicians to focus only on substance, and, as my colleague from the Netherlands said referring to Dutch politicians, I must admit that also Swiss politicians are in no way an example: politics is also a power play.

Second, there are some basic ingredients which are particularly helpful when it comes to developing a culture of dialogue. One important such element is respect for each other. One doesn’t necessarily have to agree with the other, but if one is polite and respectful in the way his or her disagreement is expressed, than that is tremendously helpful in allowing a dialogue. Personally, if I don’t agree with somebody and want to deliver a message to this person, then I know that I have to be more polite then usual - that’s the only way and chance I have to get my message across to somebody, whose views differ from mines. Another important element for dialogue is trust, which, according to what I have seen, should be plentiful here in Macedonia. Macedonia is a small country, people know each other. When we were having debates, I could frequently watch how during the breaks politicians from other parties were going to each other, hugging each other. That was always a comforting sight for me, indicating that, at the end of the day, not everything is wrong. Of course, trust needs to be nurtured. As politicians, you develop a certain specific ideology, but doing good politics is often also about finding compromises and balancing your views. Giving in a little bit of your position may get you much further than insisting on an inflexible stance. Pragmatism is required, especially in countries with different communities, where perceptions are naturally different. My hope is that Macedonian politicians would be able to be at times less serious and to see the benefits of playing more with ideas that may suit each other. Of course, to find compromises is a permanent challenge for people everywhere, and by no way the Swiss can be taken as a model for being better than others. The only way is to permanently try to talk and to reach out to each other.

(H.E. Nicole Wyrsch is the Ambassador of Switzerland)