Opening EU membership negotiations and simultaneous resolution of the name issue appear at this moment as the most logical solution for unblocking the process of Macedonia’s European integration, Nova Makedonija comments. The idea that has been highlighted on a few occasions by Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki was reiterated in a meeting between Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and his Austrian counterpart Werner Faymann. Diplomatic sources and analysts say that this will require tremendous political will on the part of Greece yet nothing of the sort has so far been signalized.

“In the process of their accession to the Union, most EU member states had bilateral disputes with another country, already an EU member state. In all those cases, opening accession talks with simultaneous resolution of the problem was allowed. Those negotiations always turned out successful,” Prime Minister Gruevski said.