Реформски пакет Едварда Греја за Македонију 1908. године
Edward Grey's Reform Package from 1908 Concerning Macedonia

Summary/Abstract: Edward Grey's reform proposition concerning Macedonia, dating from February 1908, was composed of four parts and represented the attempt of the great re-emergence of the English politics on the Balkans as well as on the international political scene. The package of measures presented before the British Parliament representatives has not been uniformly welcome in the European capitals and in the Balkans. Berlin, Vienna, Petrograd and Rome, the main European centers of those days, refused to accept the plan, justifying their decision by the financial difficulties, i.e. the impossibility for the bigger contingents of the international police forces, consequently empowered by a greater authority, to implement a peace process in Macedonia, instead of the reduced Turkish troops. In essence, this was more likely due to the fact that Vienna and Petrograd did not find the unexpected British implication in the Balkan affairs convenient at that very moment, since it violated their conception of the maintaining the status quo position, that is, the balance of the forces in that area. The plan has not been accepted in Belgrade neither, contrary to Sofia, where it has been fully embraced. Grey was ready to revise the plan, having realized that the it was doomed to failure, in its presented form, without the overall accord reached by the Great Forces. The key change the British government integrated in the revised text was to abandon the idea of decreasing the number of Turkish troops in Macedonia. On the other hand, the Russion diplomacy proposed the package of measures at the end of March 1908, which was basically founded on the English plan, especially on the part concerning the increased authority of the police forces. This partly modificated Grey's plan and the Russian one, having contained the majority of the precepts of the original plan designed by the head of the Forreign Office, served as the basis for the negotiations held between Izvolski and Nicholson in Petrograd, who prepared the platform for the Russo-British talks that were to be held at Reval, on the basis of the two forementioned plans. At the time being, the agreement over the joint project on the necessity of implementing pacification process in Macedonia was reached, but also on the need for that region to gain its autonomous administration authority. Nevertheless, the occurrence of the Young Turk Revolution prevented the realization of the joint plan. This encounter has turned a new page in the mutual relationships and reinforced the accord reached on the issues concerning Macedonia. Edward Grey's plan represented only the first step made in that direction.

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