Wednesday afternoon, UN Mediator in the Macedonia-Greece name talks Matthew Nimetz met with PM Nikola Gruevski and presented the new ideas he brought to Skopje, which he will discuss with Greek state leadership on Friday.
“I believe that this is an excellent time to try to solve the name issue,” stated Nimetz upon his meeting in the Government headquarters. On Tuesday, Nimetz also met with Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki and President Gjorge Ivanov.

Upon his arrival to Skopje, UN mediator Matthew Nimetz, when answering the question of A1 journalist- what he expects from the meeting and whether he brings a new proposal, Nimetz responded:“I expect a lot and I will give my best”.

Nimetz did not say whether he brings a new set of ideas or if he has a new proposal for a name solution for the dispute with Greece. After seven months, this afternoon, mediator Nimemtz is scheduled to meet with President Gjorge Ivanov and Foreign Minister Antoinio Milososki and on Wednesday with PM Nikola Gruevski.

Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski denied at the press conference with EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule that at his meeting with the MEPs Friday he tabled a concrete proposal for resolving the name issue.

“A newspaper reported yesterday that there were concrete talks about the name. I wish to deny. There weren’t such talks,” Prime Minister Gruevski said.

- Ahead of UN mediator Matthew Nimetz visit Government’s top officials will hold a meeting to discuss the name strategy. PM Gruevski does not plan a leadership meeting Nimetz visit, but he will

“There is a unique chance for you to resolve the name issue and for Macedonia to continue its EU integration,” said in Skopje Friday EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule, who is visiting Macedonia for the first time.

 

The MEPs that came to Skopje Thursday heard from Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski a new idea for resolving the name issue as soon as possible.

The group of MEPs including Greek MEP Jorgos Koumoutsakos openly stated that they came to put pressure on the Macedonian authorities to use the short period of time of a few months to iron out the name issue with Greece and start accession talks with the EU. German MEP Jorgo Chatzimarkakis said he was satisfied with the new idea Prime Minister Gruevski presented.

- Zoran Thaler, MEP and rapporteur on Macedonia, says in his interview with the Nova Makedonija he highly values the strategy and tactic of PM Gruevski. “I highly value Gruevski’s strategy and tactic. He invests sufficient energy in finding a solution. The main problem is not whether he is prepared for a solution, but the fact that Greece had not had the readiness so far for meaningful talks. It has to be understood that Gruevski is in a position that he can’t talk about this issue openly, because of the huge responsibility. When there is a solution, it will have to be harmonized and just so that he can communicate it to the public. So I find his reserve justified,” he said.

- The European Parliament is satisfied with the reform progress in Macedonia. However, the country should focus on improving democracy, stability and economic prosperity as it suits a country aspiring to join the EU, says the draft conclusion from the meeting of the mixed parliamentary committee chaired by Aleksandar Spasenovski and Jorgo Chatzimarkakis.

Macedonia has a window of opportunities to solve the long-standing name issue with Greece, EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule said on Wednesday, at the  briefing with Macedonian and Croatian correspondents from Brussels.

Fule is to pay a visit to Skopje on Friday to convey the message to the Government that by June Macedonia should most probably start with negotiation talks but first it must convince the EU members that it works hard on finding a solution to the name issue.

 

Macedonia and Egypt have good friendly relations but should do more to promote economic ties. This was the conclusion from the meeting of Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki and his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Aboul Gheit in Skopje on Wednesday. Mr. Gheit also met Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.

Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said Tuesday Macedonia was not talking pro-forma with Greece and that it was looking for a genuine solution to the long-standing problem.

In that context, Foreign Minister Milososki said now was the time to speed up the process of resolving the name issue. In his view the solution does not mean that only one party should make effort, as the other should keep talking about red lines.

- On Thursday MEP Giorgos Koumoutsakos will be in a working visit to Macedonia as a member of the EU –Macedonia Mixed Parliamentary Committee. As part of the delegation, German MEP of Greek origin Jorgo Chatzimarkakis will visit Macedonia too. According to projections and announcements, the Mixed Committee will chair in Skopje on 18-19 February. MEPs Koumoutsakos and Chatzimarkakis will meet with PM Nikola Gruevski and Deputy PM Vasko Naumovski.

We believe that there are signals for optimism and that further headway in resolving the name issue is possible very soon, said Spanish Ambassador to Macedonia Maria Garcia de Lara in her interview for Radio Free Europe.

- Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski expects UN-appointed name issue mediator Matthew Nimetz to put forward new ideas and possibilities for overcoming the issue with Greece in Skopje on 23 and 24 February. “Mediator Nimetz’s visit to Skopje is expected with optimism and hope that headway will be made in resolving the name issue,” he said.

The Skopje with the present look of its square does not look like a capital and resembles more a little provincial town. However, the government project is going to turn it into a metropolis. Its identity needs to be reinvented. Baroque and Classicism, as styles for the projected buildings, are quite justified. The urban methodology principles impose such a way of building. These were some of the comments of the participants in the Thursday debate Skopje 2014 organized by the recently established Dimitrie Cuposki Institute, whose founders distanced themselves from having any relations with certain political parties.

The European Parliament endorsed Wednesday rapporteur Zoran Thaler’s report on Macedonia with a majority vote. The report recommends that the Council of Ministers of the EU sets a date for starting talks with Macedonia in March.

 

Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski is paying an official visit to the Czech Republic. His Czech counterpart Jan Fischer said the Czech Republic would carry on supporting the expansion of the Union toward the Western Balkans. He believes that the assessments that Macedonia will destabilize unless the name issue is resolved in the next 6 months are too dramatic.

The Macedonian Ambassador to Australia, Pero Stojanovski, is going to call for an official explanation from the Australian authorities of the speech of the prime minister of South Australia, Mike Rann, who blamed Macedonia of stealing Greek history at a Greek festival. Some of the media in Australia warn that Rann could face accusations of stirring hatred among communities in Australia.

The relations between Macedonia and Albania are good, but effort should be made to improve the economic ties, said the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Macedonia and Albania, Antonio Milososki and Ilir Meta in Tirana, Albania, Monday.

Adopting the European principles of dialogue, friendship and mutual understanding, Macedonia and Albania make the most notable contribution to the European future of the region, Minister Milososki said in his address at the diplomatic academy of the Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

UN mediator Matthew Nimetz will pay 23 February a visit to Skopje for talks with Macedonian authorities, confirmed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Macedonia.

 

The Macedonia-Greece name issue became for a moment part of this year’s security conference in Munich when Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov talked in his address Saturday about the Greek blocks of Macedonia’s Euro-Atlantic integration, Utrinski vesnik reports. President Ivanov (officially presented as Macedonian president) dedicated half of his 15-minute address in the panel discussion on the future of the European and global security to the name issue. He said that Athens presented the name dispute as a security issue with absurd arguments and that all Greek governments deluded the international public, arguing that Macedonia had territorial claims.

Greek Ambassador to Berlin Dimitrios Kypreos, a little theatrically, to make a stronger impression, accused President Ivanov of “monopolizing the collective security speech with the name issue in the same way you want to monopolize the name. If someone starts thinking that the fall of the iron curtain upset Greece, then we are entering an irrational mental construction”.

- Deputy Prime Minister Zoran Stavreski said the financial crisis would slow down the growth of Greece, which was not going to be at all positive for Macedonia, considering that Greece was an important trade partner. He does not expect a dramatic change of investments in 2010 and believes that due to smaller costs investors will wish to keep their positions in the Macedonian market.

The center of Skopje is going to have a new look by 2014 with new buildings, some 20 monuments and retouched and decorated facades of the present buildings surrounding the Macedonia Square.

The construction of these buildings and monuments has been planned and is being realized by the Government and the Ministry of Culture, as some of it is being carried out by the Municipality of Centar. The vision of Skopje’s new look was presented Thursday with a 3D computer animation in the attendance of Centar Mayor Vladimir Todorovik, Culture Minister Elizabeta Kanceska-Milevska, architects and other guests.

- Greek PM George Papandreou accepted PM Gruevski’s invitation for new meeting a greater preparation is required but in order the meeting to take place, stated Papandreou’s cabinet. On Thursday, MEP Zoran Thaler asked the European Parliament if there is a possibility the EU to appoint a high EU representative that will work in Athens and Skopje in order to solve the name row.

Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski invited his Greek counterpart George Papandreou to a meeting in Macedonia or some other place. The meeting would aim to promote the bilateral relations and the efforts for resolving the only open issue between the two countries, the name issue. Gruevski’s office said that after sending the written invitation, the Macedonian prime minister also talked to Papandreou on the phone Wednesday in order to propel the process of seeking out a mutually acceptable solution to the name issue.

- Macedonian PM Nikola Gruevski on Wednesday had a brief phone conversation with his Greek counterpart George Papandreou. Both PMs exchanged their thoughts on the economic situation in the two countries and discussed regional and bilateral issues.

 

Finland is fully supporting the setting of a date for starting negotiations for Macedonia’s membership of the EU in March or April at the latest, but I believe that the name issue should be resolved as soon as possible, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said in Skopje Tuesday.

“The sooner talks with Macedonia begin, the better for everyone. This will not be an easy path and I will not give any dates today, but the name row must be solved as soon as possible,” Minister Stubb said after meeting his host, Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki.

- Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki met with Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb in Skopje Tuesday. Milososki and Stubb discussed Macedonia’s EU integration processes that are still burdened by the bilateral dispute. Macedonia’s Minister requested of Athens to show actions and not only intentions for solving the issue while Stubb stressed that this problem should no longer thwart Macedonia’s accession in the EU and NATO.

- Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, on Tuesday will pay a working visit to Macedonia and meet with his Macedonian counterpart Antonio Milososki.

 

 

 

Eight reform laws pertaining to the financial area have been drafted by the Government and provided to the Parliament for approval. They are modifications to the laws on securities, customs administration, customs tariff, customs operations, fast money transfer, prevention of money laundering and funding terrorism, state audit, and IPA.