- Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki is taking part in the informal meeting of the foreign ministers of the Process for Cooperation in Southeast Europe in Istanbul today. The new Greek Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, George Papandreou, is going to attend the meeting as well. The Macedonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Milososki was set to have a few bilateral meetings. There is no information though if he will meet Papandreou, too.
Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski expects “Brussels to properly evaluate the achievements, progress and effort made” in the coming report on Macedonia.
“We are doing all in our power to improve the weaknesses pointed out in the previous report of the European Commission and the benchmarks. I believe and hope that the European Commission is going to reward the achievements, progress, effort and energy we invested as a government and in general as a state and citizens,” said Prime Minister Gruevski in Stip on Wednesday.
- Vasko Naumovski, Deputy Prime Minister for EU integration, said the Government expected a fair report from the European Commission. He believes that Macedonia’s success as regards the reforms is evident and that it is hard to question it with other arguments.
Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski appealed to his new Greek counterpart George Papandreou to meet him in near future. In his greetings on the occasion of Papandreou’s election as new prime minister, Gruevski says he is sure that the message they would send to the region would be “a reflection of a more profound cooperation and understanding between our two neighbor countries and nations.”
- Slovakia backs Macedonia’s integration with NATO and the EU and expects the country to be issued a positive report from the EC this month and granted visa liberalization at the onset of 2010. This was concluded at the meeting of Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and his Slovak counterpart Robert Fico in Bratislava on Monday.
The successful referendum in Ireland, according to the Macedonian authorities, means one problem fewer for the process of Macedonia’s Euro-integration. On the other hand, the opposition believes that the Macedonian Government will no longer be able to use the EU’s internal problems as an excuse for the delays in this process. According to the civic sector, the enforcement of the Lisbon Treaty is going to provide Macedonians in Bulgaria and Greece with a new mechanism for protection of their rights.
Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said this “is a step ahead for Macedonia on its path toward EU membership.”
“There is only one or two obstacles left. However it seemed that the previous failed referendum in Ireland was the biggest impediment to the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, which makes clearer the situation as regards the European Union’s enlargement,” PM Gruevski said.
The decision of the MANU presidency to stop the sale of the Macedonian Encyclopedia so that it can be corrected is only quenching of the raging fire threatening the interethnic relations, while the crucial steps are yet to be taken, sources from the Academy told Dnevnik.
The paper says that MANU President Gjorgi Stardelov is expected to resign even before the extraordinary assembly of MANU, at which the responsibility of the academicians will be discussed, is held. The same sources say Stardelov’s responsibility is all the more bigger considering that it is revealed on a daily basis that the Encyclopedia bearing the logo of MANU is not problematic only as regards the entries about ethnic Albanians but regarding almost all segments.
MANU (Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts) stopped the distribution of the disputed Macedonian Encyclopedia and distanced itself from the entries that have stoked up serious interethnic tension over the past ten days. This decision was taken by the MANU presidency on Wednesday in the wake of the fierce reactions concerning certain parts of the edition.
Although in circles of the Academy it was speculated Wednesday that editor-in-chief Blaze Ristovski might leave the project, it did not happen.
A huge fire broke out on Wednesday morning at the Monastery of Sveti Jovan Bigorski. The initial results of the investigation show the fire broke out due to a faulty electrical wiring at the kitchen. The fire totally destroyed the monastery library, kitchen, dining room, lodgings and guest room. Fortunately, nobody was injured and thanks to the residents of the nearby villages and the firefighting brigades, the symbol of Sveti Jovan Bigorski, the iconostasis of the 19th century, was saved. The damage has initially been estimated at 5.5 million euros. The Head of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Archbishop Stefan, President Gjorge Ivanov and Culture Minister Elizabeta Kanceska-Milevska arrived at the monastery later on Wednesday. They all said efforts would be made to reconstruct the monastery as soon as possible.
Intellectuals and political parties from the Macedonian and Albanian political blocs, as well as international community representatives in the country, condemned the burning of the Macedonian flag in Pristina, assessing this as an unacceptable act that builds up tension. They all accentuate that all problems related to the recently published Macedonian Encyclopedia should be resolved through the institutions.
- PM Gruevski welcomed Monday Angela Merkel reelection as German Chancellor. He said Macedonia and Germany had excellent relations and Ms. Merkel was a friend of Macedonia, which was all the more so considering that her political party was part of the group of parties to which VMRO-DPMNE also belonged. He said he hoped Germany would therefore continue supporting Macedonia in its Euro-Atlantic integration.
The United Nations has excellent cooperation with Macedonia and it is a shame that one open issue burdens these relations, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon assessed at his meeting with Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov in New York on Saturday.
On the other hand, Ivanov stressed in an interview for the Macedonian-language program of radio Voice of America that Macedonia hopes that, after the elections in Greece, a better atmosphere can be created for resolution of the name dispute, which has dragged on for 16 years due to the bad climate.
Thursday's assembly session dedicated to parliamentarians' questions to the government members passed in an argument over the Macedonian Encyclopedia. SDSM parliamentarian Vlado Buckovski called Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski to account for the publishing of this encyclopedia, bearing in mind the fact that the prime minister promoted this publication. Buckovski assessed that the encyclopedia was prepared in a dilettantish manner, as reports from the Macedonian dailies were used as a source for the paragraph that states, "There were American and British special-forces members and sponsors in the camps of the National Liberation Army". He warned that this encyclopedia caused most damage to Macedonia's strategic partnership with Great Britain and the United States of America.
Following the recent reactions, the MANU Editorial Board decided to make certain corrections in some sections of the Macedonian Encyclopedia. The copies printed so far will not be withdrawn. A mitigating circumstance is that only 50 copies of the encyclopedia have been printed so far and the encyclopedia was not released for sale.
BDI leader Ali Ahmeti will wait to see whether Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski will distance himself from the disputable parts in MANU's (Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts) encyclopedia, before he decides whether his party should remain in the ruling coalition, Dnevnik has learned from party sources. Even though a number of political parties called on the prime minister to state his official position on this issue, there was no reaction from the Government or VMRO-DPMNE yesterday. They say that Gruevski remains on the position that he has "no comment".
- President Gjorge Ivanov will meet with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg in New York today, at sidelines of 64th Session of UN General Assembly. Main topic of discussion will be name dispute between Macedonia and Greece.
The leadership of the MANU, following the four-day long strong reactions to the Encyclopedia, refused to comment the protests in front of its building. Daily UTRINSKI VESNIK published today that the sources from the Macedonian Academy are categorical that the Encyclopedia will not be withdrawn. "We did not print the Encyclopedia to withdraw and reprint it," editor-in-chief Blaze Ristovski says. "We will make e second edition and there is no need for reprinting the first edition only upon the request of some so-called politicians or political parties. We are a scientific institution that is absorbing all the scientific staff in the state. We want to elaborate Macedonia from all the aspects, and not just the historical or cultural and language aspects, and therefore we wanted everything that was relevant to find its place in these bindings, for which we had engaged the most authorized staff. In the role of editor-in-chief, I am not authorized in all the fields, but this is why we engaged people who can say the last word," Ristovski emphasizes.
A number of Albanian intellectuals, NGOs, and political parties have expressed these days their protest against the contents published in the "Macedonian Encyclopedia" related to the history of the Albanians in Macedonia and the way in which the Encyclopedia is treating the Albanian politicians in Macedonia. BDI, the coalition party in the Government, stated that it would not abandon the government coalition because of the contents of the "Macedonian Encyclopedia," but the Albanian political bloc would sue MANU (Macedonian Academy of Science and Art) for fostering inter-ethnic hate.
- Following a few-day visit to the US state of Vermont, President Gjorge Ivanov will arrive in New York on Tuesday where he will attend the 64th Session of the UN General Assembly. The Foreign Ministry informed that Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki will not accompany Ivanov in New York because he injured his leg.
- The civil association "Skopje inhabitant Mother Teresa" presented Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki with the honorary recognition "Humanist of the Year". Milososki stressed after the ceremony that he expects the talks on the name dispute to move forward.
Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki will depart for the Vatican on Friday, accompanied by Macedonia's newly-appointed ambassador to the Vatican Gjoko Gjorgevski, to present an official invitation to Pope Benedict XVI to visit Macedonia. The invitation comes from President Gjorge Ivanov, but according to state protocol, it will be presented by the foreign minister.
- The European Parliament recommended at its session on Wednesday that the visa regime with Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro be lifted by 1 January year 2010.
- Greece should not block Macedonia's accession to EU, Eckart D. Stratenschulte, director of European Academy, and Johannes Bohnen, founder of think-tank Atlantic Community from Berlin, assessed on Tuesday. They presented to President Ivanov memorandum that they sent to EU member states as support for Macedonia's integration in EU.
The issues concerning the right to the name Macedonia and who has made bigger concessions provoked a fierce duel between Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov and Greek Ambassador to Germany Anastassios Kriekoukis following Ivanov’s address at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin on Monday. Responding to Kriekoukis’s accusations that Macedonia had not made any concessions, Ivanov said that he has a solution to the name dispute.
“The Republic of Macedonia is different from the region Macedonia. I gave the proposal Macedonia 39 percent. Greece has 51 percent. However, our 39 percent are 100 percent Macedonia, while their 51 percent are only 5 percent Macedonia. Who has the right to the name Macedonia?” Ivanov said.
- German President Horst Köhler believes that Macedonia will be given date for start of negotiations for membership in EU, Macedonian President Ivanov states at briefing with journalists in Germany, adding that he feels that Germany is Macedonia's lobbyist. "We are used to expecting negativity from Greece, but we expected support from Europe. The lack of this support was evident," Ivanov said in his address at Konrad Adenauer Foundation, commenting on events at NATO Summit in Bucharest in year 2008.
The biggest opposition party SDSM held a Congress on Saturday at which it adopted its new program "Solutions for Macedonia". SDSM Chairman Branko Crvenkovski said that this program reopens the state's Euro-Atlantic perspectives.
A senior VMRO-DPMNE delegation, headed by party Deputy Chairman Zoran Stavreski, also attended the SDSM Congress.
Macedonia is ready to establish a separate industrial zone provided that Chinese companies decide to invest in the country, said Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski after meeting his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao in Dalian, China, on Thursday.
"Macedonia has a free trade agreement with the European Union, Ukraine, Turkey, Albania, the countries of the former Yugoslavia and a few others, including Switzerland and Norway," Gruevski said.
He also explained that investors in the free economic zones are exempt from profit tax and personal income tax in the first ten years and have to pay a 10 percent profit tax and personal income tax after that.
Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski rejected the speculation that new early parliamentary elections will be held. In an interview for Sitel TV, Prime Minister Gruevski negated the information that the recent government activities are an introduction to new elections. "No one in the Government is thinking about early elections. We are committed to realizing the priorities from our program. But we also implement other measures aimed at alleviating citizens' lives," Gruevski said.
Prime Minister Gruevski informed from China, where he is attending the World Economic Forum, that he did not accept Transport and Communications Minister Mile Janakieski's resignation,
- On the occasion of Independence Day - 8 September - President Gjorge Iavnov said all had the opportunity over the past 18 years to get accustomed to the idea that Macedonia is a reality in the Balkans and that they should accept Macedonia as an open country and a friend to whom friendship should be extended in return.
