- Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki assessed that the coming round of negotiations in New York is a good opportunity to see which one of the two sides is more constructive. Also, Poposki said that Macedonia has finished the regular national programme for joining NATO and that Macedonia has crystal clear dossier ahead of the December summit of the European Union.

The minorities in Greece are going to be surprised if they read the praises that the Greek Government put on paper to justify its nomination for the UN Human Rights Council. Macedonia’s southern neighbor says that it has always been a staunch supporter of promoting international cooperation in the field of human rights and that it was the cornerstone of a number of organizations. As regards minority rights, on the six pages on which Athens seeks support in being granted a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, Greece promises to honor standards in regard to the minority rights of the Roma and Muslim population in Thrace, Dnevnik reports.

- Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov is to pay a visit to Vienna on Friday and Saturday where he is to take part at the Congress “90 years Pan-Europe.”

The numbers of the State Election Commission and the Ministry of Interior of the Macedonian citizens eligible to vote differ. The first institution says that as of 30 September, voters in Macedonia with biometric IDs (which is a condition for voting) totaled 1,739,907, and according to the Interior Ministry there are 24,000 more voters. The two institutions presented their reports at the Wednesday meeting of the working group making revision of the voters’ list. Furthermore, the Recordkeeping Office, said that its numbers differ from those of the Interior Ministry by a few thousand voters on various bases, Dnevnik reports.

However, all these different numbers of citizens eligible to vote either at home or abroad, did not prevent the representatives of the State Election Commission, the Interior Ministry, the State Statistical Office, the Recordkeeping Office, the political parties, the non-governmental MOST and the foreign mediators from the OSCE and the ODIHR to adopt conclusions that the voters’ list is fine. They put down the differences to the different methodologies (a citizen of age is not defined the same by the State Election Commission and the Interior Ministry).

The Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) started testing Macedonia’s willingness to free Jovan Vraniskovski from prison without having reached any previous agreement concerning the continuation and the outcome of the talks between the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Macedonian Orthodox Church-Ohrid Archbishopric (MPC-OA). The defense lawyers of Vraniskovski, held in the Skopje prison of Idrizovo, told Dnevnik Tuesday that they were going to file a request for his pardoning to Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov.

“Apart from a request for pardoning, we are also going to file for cancelation of the measure of detention that he now serves. If the head of state accepts our requests, Vraniskovski will be completely free, from both imprisonment and detention. We are doing this with Vraniskovski’s consent,” Vraniskovski’s lawyer Aleksandar Tortevski told Dnevnik.

The release of the defrocked bishop, being held on charges of money laundering and sentenced to two and a half years in prison, is the condition that the Serbian Orthodox Church set in exchange for resuming talks over the recognition of the autocephalous status of the Macedonian Orthodox Church-Ohrid Archbishopric.  This was previously called for by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic who said he would get personally involved in this regard considering he had good relations with the Serbian church leadership. He even said that Vraniskovski’s release would be the first step for the Macedonian church to come to its desired goal.

- Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski met Tuesday in Prague with Czech counterpart Petr Necas who assured him that the Czech Republic will support Macedonia’s negotiations at the EU Summit in December.

“An excuse for the irregularities in the “battle” for Kicevo in the local elections” is how representatives of VMRO-DPMNE see the tour of the leadership of BDI, headed by leader Ali Ahmeti, of a few European countries, during which Ahmeti tells Albanian migrants how important their vote in the local elections in Macedonia, Kicevo in particular, will be, Nova Makedonija reports.

They draw their assessment from similar attempts in past elections when as much as 50 percent of the registered voters cast ballots, although the majority of them were abroad and were not physically present in Macedonia on the election day.

- Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski who is participating at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Prague said Monday that there is no consolation for our rightfully deserved place on the table of the North Atlantic Council in Brussels. Gruevski reminded of the events from the NATO Summit in Bucharest up until the Chicago Summit as well as of the ignoring of the Hague judgment and demanded the status quo situation to be urgently broken and Macedonia to become a NATO member. In Prague, Gruevski held a tete-a-tete meeting with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

In the absence of the opposition political parties SDSM, PDSH and RDK, with 66 votes in favor the Macedonian Parliament adopted Friday the modifications to the election law, as with the votes of BDI the Bandinter majority rule was also observed. This move of the government is a clear sign for the opposition that the government intends to swing the next local elections, which, the opposition, however, has no intention to allow.

According to the opposition parties, the adopted modifications to the election law do not include even half of the recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR given after last year’s parliamentary elections, as SDSM leader Branko Crvenkovski said a month ago that unless all recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR were accepted, they were not going to run in the poll.

- Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki, as of Monday, is to pay an official visit to the Socialistic Republic of Vietnam and a two day visit to the Republic of Indonesia. According to the agenda, Poposki is to meet with high officials from both countries and speak about promoting the bilateral relations.

- Macedonian Minister of Foreign Affairs met Thursday with OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Knut Vollebaek. Poposki presented the cooperation strategy with ethnic communities and discussions were held about the integrated education.

In its response to the draft memorandum, Macedonia is trying not to give Greece anything that the southern neighbor can take advantage of in the lead-up to the December summit of the EU, said diplomatic sources in their statements for Dnevnik about the letter that Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki sent to his Greek counterpart Dimitris Avramopoulos.

Macedonia invokes the Interim Accord in its response and appeals for more intense name issue talks, meetings at the highest level and that Athens accept the proposal of the European Commission that the name issue talks unfold in parallel with the EU membership negotiations.

Promoting good-neighborly relations between Macedonia and Greece through the proposed framework of the European Commission for conducting parallel name issue talks and EU membership negotiations, creating a balanced framework for propelling name issue talks with the mediation of Matthew Nimetz and launching intensive communication between Skopje and Athens at a diplomatic and political level are the proposals that Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki included in his response to the Greek draft memorandum of understanding provided to the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday afternoon. The letter was handed to Greek Deputy Foreign Minister Dimitris Kourkoulas by Sasko Stefkov, Macedonian Ambassador to Athens, at a meeting Monday.

Exactly a month since Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos sent the document to Skopje, Macedonia sent back a principled reply, which, as announced, invokes the Interim Accord of 1995, the UN Security Council Resolutions and the Judgment of the International Court of Justice. Minister Poposki reminds his Greek counterpart that the framework of the process had been established with these documents.

The budget for next year has been projected at 2.7 billion euros, and is identical to this year’s. However, next year the government plans to collect 2.4 billion euros, which is less than in 2012. The economic growth rate next year is expected to be moderate – 2 percent – and the budget deficit has been raised to 3.5 percent and will be covered with the announced loans from foreign commercial banks and by issuing multiple-year treasury bonds.

Prices will be at a stable level, the inflation rate is not going to surpass 3.5 percent, and the public debt will be kept at a low level, Finance Minister Zoran Stavreski said, presenting the draft budget 2013.

“The revenues have been projected at a level slightly lower than the one in 2012, which is a prudent projection. We are going to monitor the situation in the European economy and if necessary make interventions,” Minister Stavreski said.

- Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki at Thursday's press conference stated that the Government has prepared a response to the draft-memorandum of understanding that Greece sent to Macedonia at the beginning of October. Macedonia's response, which will soon be submitted to Athens, includes a requirement for respect, in a non-selective manner, of all obligations undertaken in the past and full commitment to dialogue. On the accusations by Bulgarian authorities over Macedonia's violation of good neighborly relations and the discriminating relation towards citizens who declare themselves as Bulgarians, he assessed that such statements do not reflect the reality, since there is no concrete example that could confirm such claims by official Sofia.

The voters’ list that Macedonia used in the parliamentary elections of June last year has been expanded by 58,496 new citizens eligible to vote. Instead of declining, considering the main remark of the OSCE/ODIHR was that there were too many voters relative to the total number of citizens in the country and abroad in the previous two elections, the number of voters is rising.

According to the State Election Commission, on the day of the parliamentary elections last year (5 June), there were 1,821,122 voters – information that can also be found on the Commission’s website. After trimming the voters’ list, the State Election Commission said at its press conference Wednesday that as of 30 September, the list has 1,879,618 voters, which means that there are some 60,000 voters more.

- President Gjorge Ivanov, participated Wednesday in Sochi at the Forum “Peace and Sport” organized by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prince Albert II of Monaco. Ivanov held a speech on the sport as a factor of tolerance and he is to meet with several renowned athletes and representatives of sport federations.

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov has recently taken yet another opportunity to remind Macedonia that on its way to the EU it has Bulgarian support only not at all cost, Dnevnik comments.

“From our point of view, there are conditions that need to be met so we can continue extending support the way we have done over the past 20 years,” Minister Mladenov said in Blagoevgrad during his visit to Bulgaria’s border regions.

The goal of the visit, as Mladenov explained, was hearing the opinion of the local people and authorities before drafting the announced document about Bulgaria’s policy toward its neighbors.

“Our goal has never been to block Macedonia’s or any other country’s European integration,” Mladenov said and added that Bulgaria should not be afraid to speak its mind and table the problems in its relations with Macedonia because only in that way can it protect its own interests.

- Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki Monday signed the agreement between the Republic of Macedonia and the European Union on establishing a framework for the participation of the Republic of Macedonia in Crisis Management Operations of the European Union. Although Macedonia is not an EU member, this is proof that our country is capable of participating in the Union’s peacekeeping missions.

A few thousand Serbs from Macedonia and from Serbia celebrated Sunday the 100th anniversary of the Kumanovo battle, which is considered to mark the start of the end of the Ottoman rule in the Balkans. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic who was the informal host of the event said that the celebration of the battle was a message of peace and remembrance of the civilization turnaround in the Balkans.

“From Zebrnjak, the place connecting us, Serbia and Macedonia are sending out a message of peace, cooperation and understanding in the region,” the guest from Belgrade said.

He also said that his country was fighting today a new battle, only this time round for admission to the EU.

The economies of the countries of Southeast Europe are going to grow at a much lower rate than the projected one this year because of the effects of the aggravated situation in the eurozone, said the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. According to the latest report of the EBRD, the latest projection of the Macedonian economic growth has been set at 0.3 percent this year and 2 percent next year, and is the highest growth rate projection in the region.

The EBRD says that in 2011 Macedonia was shielded from the eurozone crisis primarily thanks to its prudent fiscal policy in coordination with the monetary policy. However, this year, the impact of the external factors is stronger as a result of which the economic growth has slowed down, mostly as a result of the reduced export being a consequence of the crippled demand, and reduced foreign investments and foreign remittances. It is for this reason that a minimum growth rate of 0.3 percent has been projected, the EBRD says in the section of the report focusing on Macedonia.

-    Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic is starting today his 3-day visit to Macedonia.

The neo-Nazi attacks on minorities, the rising extremism, the connections between the state, the secret police and the church in defending the Greek national myth and the absurd refusal to let the minorities call themselves as they like were some of the most serious accusations concerning the attitude of Greece toward the non-Greek communities living in the country voiced at the public debate in Washington attended by representatives of the Macedonian, Turkish and Albanian ethnic communities in Greece. The present representatives of US organizations for protection of human rights and analytical centers listened in disbelief to the personal testimonies of persecuted Archimandrite Nikodim Tsarknias or the reports of the arrests of muftis in the Turkish-populated towns and villages of Greece, reports Cvetin Cilimanov, MIA’s Washington-based correspondent.

“How is it possible for such a country to be an EU member state?” a representative of the Woodrow Wilson International Center wondered out loud.

 

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the principal core of generation and acquisition of international credibility and accession to international organizations. Crystal clear is the message of building a joint European and world future as a country ready to join the EU and NATO, said Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki at the ceremony of opening the new building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Skopje Tuesday.

After twenty years of independence, the Macedonian diplomatic service received accommodation capacities that suit a future member state of the EU and NATO, Minister Poposki said.

The opening ceremony was attended by diplomats, ambassadors, former ministers and Members of Parliament, who had the opportunity to see the new offices in the seven-storey building. During the cocktail party on the terrace overlooking the center of Skopje, the ambassadors, including Alexandra Papadopoulou, Head of the Greek Liaison Office, were afforded an opportunity to see the statues of some of the most famous people in world history, such as Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, etc. 

- The investment fund SEAF Macedonia 1 established by SEAF and the Macedonian Diaspora was promoted in Ohrid over the weekend. The non-profit Macedonia 2025, organizer of the Macedonia Global Investment Summit in Ohrid, said 15 million dollars will be invested in the fund to be then distributed to 15 home companies. Businessmen agreed that Macedonia 2025 was building a bridge for support for businesses in Macedonia that need fast transfer of knowhow and new technologies.

The US company Kemet Electronics has started production of electronic equipment for the aviation, military and automobile industries at its factory in the Bunardzik technological zone near Skopje. One hundred jobs have been created in the first stage, as later the total workforce is expected to be 500-strong. The investment totals some 20 million dollars.

The presence of Kemet Electronics in Macedonia represents an invitation to many other firms with which this company does business, including HP, Siemens, Philips, etc, said Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

- Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikola Poposki, who is taking part at the conference titled "From Balkan Wars to Balkan Peace" in Istanbul together with the ministers from the region, stated that Macedonia is now prepared to launch the negotiations with the European Commission and Brussels should take this into consideration. Poposki held meetings with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu and discussed about the European integration of both countries.

The Polish Government, through a resolution signed by the foreign ministers of the Visegrad Group countries - Poland, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and Hungary – should urge Brussels to let Macedonia open EU membership negotiations without any conditions. This is the position that the Polish Institute of International Affairs in Warsaw announced two days ago, immediately after the publication of the report of the European Commission on Macedonia’s progress, in an analysis made for the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In the document entitled “How the Polish approach to the Western Balkans should be upgraded” Macedonia is referred to with its constitutional name and an additional chapter has been inserted focusing on Macedonia’s European integration entitled “Don’t leave Macedonia out of the agenda.”

The true role of the European Commission will be disclosed in December when EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule puts forward a plan for resolution of the name issue in parallel with Macedonia’s EU membership negotiations, Greek diplomatic sources told To Vima. The paper reported Tuesday that Athens should not worry so much about the proposal of the European Commission for resolution of the name issue in the early stage of Macedonia’s membership negotiations because that issue is outside of Fule’s mandate. According to the paper, at his meeting with Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos in Athens, Commissioner Fule said he would promote a firm standing in the report on Macedonia. To Vima says that Avramopoulos’s close associates knew that Greece was exposed to a subtle pressure over the name issue not just from the USA but also from Europe, Dnevnik reports.

BDI is going to use democratic mechanisms to convince the public that the draft law on defenders is biased and must not pass Parliament, said BDI leader Ali Ahmeti after the VMRO-DPMNE MPs withdrew the draft Monday and proposed that it be adopted in summary proceedings. In this way, both parties of the governing coalition have retained their relentless standings – VMRO-DPMNE that the law has to be passed and BDI that the law is biased and they will therefore block Parliament. Ahmeti also commented on the relations in the coalition for the first time.

“The status of Macedonian defenders and NLA fighters should be resolved with a joint law. This is also stated in the report of the European Commission. This issue is being debated, we have different views and misunderstandings, yet a solution needs to be found through dialogue and a compromise,” Ahmeti said.

He added that BDI and VMRO-DPMNE had not discussed the possibility of holding early elections, Nova Makedonija reports.