The Council of Europe “seriously doubts” that Macedonia is politically stable enough to carry out the required reforms and has therefore announced opening of an office in Skopje, Utrinski vesnik reports.

This is the main message in the report of Robert Walter, rapporteur on Macedonia in Strasbourg, which will be presented next week and which Jean Claude Mignon, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, presented in Skopje Monday. According to the report, Macedonia faces challenges to its stability and social cohesion at a number of levels, partly as a result of its partisan society.

The report says that ten years of the Ohrid agreement, interethnic relations are still frail and there have been serious incidents (the case Monster, the ethnic protests, etc) and so it appeals to politicians to refrain from nationalistic rhetoric and draft internal trust building measures. Strasbourg also wants the census to be finally taken, the March agreement with the EU, particularly the part of it referring to the setting up of the inquiry committee, to be carried out, media freedom to be ensured by the Government and Greece to demonstrate greater flexibility in regard to Macedonia’s name.