The Prime Ministers of Macedonia and Greece, Nikola Gruevski and George Papandreou, held their first official meeting in Brussels on Thursday, at which the main topic was the name issue and the possibility for both parties to reach a mutually acceptable solution.

This was the first meeting of prime ministers of Macedonia and Greece since 2006 when Vlado Buckovski met Kostas Karamanlis. Dnevnik reports today that both prime ministers agreed it was important to find a mutually acceptable solution under UN auspices. A diplomat from Gruevski’s Office, Dnevnik says, confirmed there would not be direct talks between Athens and Skopje and the EU would not assume the role of a mediator. 

The same source says that Papandreou and Gruevski agreed that the solution to this problem had key significance for both parties as well as for the European future of the whole region. The meeting took place in a good atmosphere, but the prime ministers did not go into details about the name issue, nor did they discuss any concepts for its resolution.