The aim, according to Luis Fernando Ramirez, the defence minister, is more modest: to convince the guerrillas that they can never win militarily, and so should start negotiating in earnest.
That may just be negotiating tactics, but a failure to win candidate status would be a heavy blow for Macedonia and for the rest of the western Balkans, which will be watching the Brussels summit unusually closely this week.
The fight for fast-track negotiating authority which the American administration needs to win from Congress to finish, even if not to start, new trade talks has been made much harder.