- On Tuesday, chief of Macedonian diplomacy Antonio Milososki will pay an official visit to Slovenia where he will meet with Slovenian President Danilo Turk and several members of the European Parliament.

 

At the working meeting between representatives of the Federation of Economic Chambers (SSK) and Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski Monday, SSK welcomed the government steps for cutting profit tax, social contributions, and personal income tax and praised the two budget rebalances last year and the credit line from the European Investment Bank.

Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said the economic crisis in 2009 had a negative effect on the real sector in Macedonia and this caused the economic growth to slow down. According to Gruevski, Macedonia is going to end 2009 with a 0.6 percent decline of the economic activity. However, this is much less compared with other European countries.

Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki sent a letter to his Greek counterpart Dimitris Droutsas for organizing a direct bilateral meeting in London on 28 January at the sidelines of the International Conference on Afghanistan. PM Nikola Gruevski is not optimistic that these meetings will bring something new but says that it is worth the effort.

Macedonian ambassador to the Netherlands and representative of the Macedonian lawsuit against Greece in the Hague-based International Court of Justice Nikola Dimitrov confirmed on Wednesday that state institutions received Greece’s counter-arguments regarding the lawsuit.  According to experts involved in this process, Greece will not wait for the epilogue of the lawsuit outcome and will most probably seek to reach a compromise solution in the dispute with Macedonia. 

Today’s start of the second term of the school year is not going to mark the beginning of the study of the Macedonian language by ethnic Albanian first-graders in spite of Education Minister Nikola Todorov’s categorical position that the government decision has to be put into practice. The minister is going to face a silent boycott. It is unclear though how the boycott will be carried out, whether students will be absent from schoolrooms or will stay inside with their teachers, ignoring Macedonia’s official language, Dnevnik reports.

- Greece should provide its counter-arguments to the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Wednesday. The Court will then consult both parties and decide when the procedure should begin.
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“One of the reasons for my visit is also to eliminate doubts of Macedonia’s public that Slovenia in any way has altered its positive position, supporting the need Macedonia to join the Euro-Atlantic institutions,” stated Pahor.

PM Nikola Gruevski said that he presented Pahor more details on the matter. “The Republic of Macedonia wishes to find a solution to this issue and as thus far we shall do our best to come to a settlement,” stated Gruevski.

The idea of resolving the name issue in stages that the leader of the Democratic Union, Pavle Trajanov, suggested is completely unacceptable to Greece, Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski believes.

The first democratically elected Bulgarian president, Zelju Zelev, said Thursday that Greece was conducting disgraceful politics to Macedonia. He believes that Macedonia should keep its constitutional name as it was named in the Yugoslav federation for half a century. He wonders why Greece did not raise this issue at the time of Tito.

Friday, PM Nikola Gruevski will meet with NATO’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the EU headquarters. Macedonia’s achievements and EU membership perspectives will be discussed at the meeting as well as the reform processes within the frames of the Euro-Atlantic integration.

Democratic Union MP Pavle Trajanov’s proposal for resolution of the name issue with Greece in stages is, in fact, a proposal of the Government that has recently been provided to UN mediator Matthew Nimetz, Vreme has learned from sources close to the Government. Trajanov confirmed he had sent the proposal to Nimetz and expects to receive an answer soon. His proposal has been previously well received by EU officials Olli Rehn and Jose Manuel Barroso, who assessed it as interesting and constructive. Trajanov presented his proposal also to the Greek officials in Skopje and says their reactions were positive, too.

According to an opinion poll of the International Republican Institute (IRI), if an election was held tomorrow, 30 percent of the electorate would vote for VMRO-DPMNE, 12 percent for SDSM, 8 percent for BDI, 6 percent for PDSH, 3 percent for Demokracia E Re, 1 percent for LDP, and slightly over 0 percent for United for Macedonia. 21 percent of the interviewed were uncommitted. According to the results of this poll, 94 percent of the people back Macedonia’s EU membership and 91 percent support the country’s NATO integration. The on-site poll was conducted on 17-22 December on a sample of 1,105 interviewees. The results of this poll do not differ much from the poll conducted in September.

Some 400 police officers protested Monday outside the Constitutional Court unsatisfied with the decision denying them the right to early retirement. Carrying banners on which it was written “Judges, don’t let politicians lead you on”, “While others get shares, we get bullets and injuries” and “Honorable retirement is the least we expect from society”, the police officers expressed their discontent, Vreme reports.

The police officers started their peaceful protest with the national anthem and then proceeded to voicing their demands and arguments.

 

Macedonia has been included in the list of 31 top tourist destinations worth visiting in 2010 of the New York Times. The paper describes Ohrid as a city of tradition and history with one of the planet’s deepest lakes. Ohrid is poised for international claim, the paper says. In addition to the churches and monuments, New York Times recommends also visiting the Bronze Age village built on stilts.

Israel and Macedonia are friends that have excellent cooperation, said Israeli President Shimon Peres and Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski at their meeting in Jerusalem Tuesday.
According to President Peres, Macedonia did the right thing renouncing the Balkan past and turning to the European future. Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski stressed that there were a lot of things Macedonia could learn from Israel and that one of their bridges of communication was the Jewish community in Macedonia.
The Macedonian prime minister is set to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday afternoon and Tzipi Livni, leader of the major opposition party Kadima, on Wednesday.

 

Starting Monday, PM Nikola Gruevski is on a three day visit to Israel. Gruevski presented investment potentials in Macedonia to Israeli businessmen, Monday. Gruevski’s main argument was the low taxes.

PM Nikola Gruevski offered to sell the Tutunski Kombinat Prilep, EMO from Ohrid and EuroKompozit from Prilep to Israeli businessmen. The Government has its own capital in these three companies.

The Greek Ministry of Defense wants to expropriate fields around four villages in the municipality of Ovcarani in northern Greece populated chiefly with Macedonians in order to expand the assault course. The residents of the villages have already announced an institutional battle both at home and on the international level. In October last year they strongly opposed the holding of the unannounced military maneuvers of the Greek army near the villages by forming a human shield around the village of Zabrdeni (Lofi) and refusing for two days to let the armored vehicles of the Greek army pass through the villages. They resisted the plan of turning the military camp into barracks that would house bigger military units, Dnevnik reports.

Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki says in his interview with Vecer that it has been long since NATO as the most serious military alliance experienced such ridicule of its credibility and principles as at the Summit in Bucharest with the Greek block on Macedonia’s deserved membership of the Alliance. Speaking about Macedonia’s red lines in the talks with Greece, Milososki said the international law was our line for defending the Macedonian identity and national dignity. Milososki expects successful outcome of the lawsuit against Greece, too.

After making changes in the party’s leadership, BDI leader Ali Ahmeti is going to request of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski a government reshuffle early next year. BDI officials say that the government reshuffle would most probably occur by the end of January. There is no information yet whether besides officials from BDI, officials from VMRO-DPMNE would be replaced, too. VMRO-DPMNE neither confirmed nor denied the speculation Tuesday. They say they will refrain from commenting on such information for the time being, Dnevnik reports.

Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki announced that the opening of the EU membership negotiation talks will present the Government’s ultimate priority in 2010. On Monday, before the Foreign Policy Committee, FM Milososki stated that the southern neighbor uses the name issue for daily political goals and an agreement can be reached only with mutual respect of both nations. Milososki confirmed that the Government does not withdraw from the lodged appeal against Greece in the Hague.

The Parliament adopted Thursday the budget 2010, according to which revenues have been projected at 143, 257,000,000 denars and expenditures at 153,720,000,000 denars. The deficit has been projected at 2.5 percent of GDP, or 10, 460,000,000 denars. Revenues went up 3.4 percent and expenditures 2.8 percent. GDP would grow 2 percent and inflation will stand at 2 percent in 2010.

The name issue should be resolved over the next three instead of six months as a crucial condition to de-block the process of integration with the EU and NATO and to keep the coalition between BDI and VMRO-DPMNE alive, BDI says. Unless this happens by the end of March, BDI leader Ali Ahmeti is going to tell Prime Minister Gruevski that his political party is walking out of the Government, Vreme reports.

Monday, President of the Republic of Macedonia Gjorge Ivanov addressed the Macedonian Parliament. According to Ivanov, 2009 will be remembered for big and significant achievements. Regarding the name issue, Ivanov stressed that Macedonia is ready for a solution of compromise, but only regarding things foreseen in UN resolutions. The opposition assessed Ivanov’s first annual address, since being elected president, as empty, idealess but filled with compliments to the Government. According to BDI representatives, Ivanov only counted down what he has done and we who he had met.  VMRO-DPMNE praised Ivanov’s statement that Macedonia should lead a Macedonian and European policy.

Macedonian citizens can now travel without visas in the European Union countries. Around 100 Macedonian citizens travelled to Paris on a one-day excursion, in order to symbolically mark the EU visa free regime. On 19 December President Gjorge Ivanov symbolically passed the Bulgarian border crossing without a visa. He was met by his Bulgarian counterpart Georgi Prvanov. Prior to this, late Friday, 10 000 citizens celebrated the visa liberalization on the center square.

 

Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov, on his demand, on Thursday at the sidelines of the Conference on Climate Changes had a brief meeting with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou. President Ivanov welcomed the established dialogue between both countries which should contribute in increasing the trust and the better understanding of the political leaders. 

President Ivanov on Wednesday in Copenhagen stated that everybody needs a legally binding agreement at global level which will reduce global warming. The President who is taking part at the at the UN Conference on Climate Change said that Macedonia brought a decision a decision to boost its use of renewable energies in overall energy consumption from the current 15,3% to 21%.

In the governing coalition of VMRO-DPMNE and BDI problems have occurred in the wake of the meeting of the EU Council of Ministers in Brussels on 8 December. The discontent of BDI, expressed in a column by BDI general secretary Teuta Arifi and substantiated in a separate statement by MP Ermira Mehmeti, is getting increasingly visible.  Both MPs raise the issue of what BDI is doing in an anti-NATO and anti-European government and set the condition that BDI would walk out of the coalition unless Macedonia resolves the name issue with Greece over the next six months.

VMRO-DPMNE voiced public disagreement with the BDI stands for the first time on Tuesday. Although VMRO-DPMNE MP Kosana Nikolik-Mazneva presented her stands on BDI’s rigidness, intolerance and national frustration as personal views, almost the entire public believes this is the position of BDI’s coalition partner VMRO-DPMNE.

Macedonian president Gjorge Ivanov is to participate at the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen from December 15-18. The president of Macedonia is scheduled to address the Conference on Wednesday.  At the sidelines of the Conference, Ivanov is to meet with his colleagues from Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and from Lithuania, Dalia Gribauskaite.

Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki called on building bridges between the countries in the region and for fighting prejudices, stereotypes and racial discrimination. He appealed for respect of differences and announced that Macedonia joined the initiative for inter-cultural dialogue, at the first Ministerial Meeting of the Alliance of Civilizations of the UN for the Countries of Southeast Europe that took place in Sarajevo on Monday. In this context, Macedonia is going to organize a celebration of the centennial of Mother Theresa’s birth next year.

 

Macedonia is politically upset by the outcome of the meeting of the EU Council of Ministers in Brussels. The opposition accused the Government of conducting the name issue talks badly and of being responsible for the rising Euro-skepticism, as Prime Minister Gruevski said no government would be able to accept the Greek demands.

The leaders’ meeting organized by EU Ambassador Erwan Fouere Friday went in such an atmosphere, too. Prime Minister Gruevski said in a televised interview later that day that the mistrust between the government and the opposition was the main obstacle to building a common strategy in the process of resolving the name issue. According to Gruevski, it is impossible for him to tell everything to the opposition, which evidently sees in the dispute with Greece a unique possibility for political resurrection. On the other hand, SDSM leader Branko Crvenkovski said over the weekend the country was in a dead end and that fear ruled again.