Macedonian Parliament Speaker Trajko Veljanoski scheduled for Monday a coordination meeting at which the unblocking of the process of adoption of the budget of the Republic of Macedonia for 2013 will be discussed.

In addition to the vice speakers and coordinators of the parliamentary groups, the meeting, as the parliamentary press service informed, will also be attended by Marjanco Nikolov, chairman of the parliamentary committee on finances and budget, Blagorodna Dulik, chairwoman of the parliamentary legislative committee and Zoran Stavreski, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.

-    We appreciate that the progress in Macedonia has been recognized in the conclusions of the Council of Ministers of the EU yet we are disappointed that no decision has been taken to set Macedonia a date for opening the deserved membership negotiations. It is clear that a chance has been missed to contribute essentially to a more stable and more prosperous Balkans. These are the positions that Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski laid out before the heads of state and government and leaders of political parties – members of the European people’s parties. At the summit held at the Royal Academy in Brussels, the Macedonian prime minister sincerely thanked all member states and institutions of the EU that worked hard to help achieve progress in the EU enlargement. He stressed that he would not disappoint them and that Macedonia would double its effort in carrying out reforms and conducting dialogue. “Our southern neighbor favors the practice of not honoring international law and undertaken responsibilities. This is a challenge to the credibility of the enlargement process of the EU. Our response is a European one. We are going to continue reforms and work even harder to promote peace, trust and stability in Southeast Europe. I trust this is going to be appreciated more than the practice of blocks,” PM Gruevski said.

- The Republic of Hungary is the 135th country in the world that has recognized the Republic of Macedonia under its constitutional name. On Thursday, the Hungarian Government made a decision to address us by the Republic of Macedonia everywhere except where the UN reference is mandatory. The Republic of Macedonia hails the support within the European Union, where Hungary has been clearly advocating a swift launch of Macedonia's EU accession talks, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release.

The governing parties VMRO-DPMNE and BDI are disappointed with the latest conclusions of the EU Council, which has not set Macedonia a date for launching EU membership negotiations for the fourth time. However, they clearly said that the country retained its Euro-Atlantic priorities as strategic and crucial. While Nikola Gruevski’s party expects this to be verified one day, coalition partner Ali Ahmeti believes that this can be done by the deadlines set by Brussels with fast resolution of the name issue with Greece, as a top interest to the country.

However, both trust that this can be achieved with internal unification regarding the name issue with Greece and the Euro-Atlantic integration.

- EU Commissioner Stefan Fule and representatives of Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Sweden and the Baltic countries, to the last moment, fought for Macedonia to get set with a date for start of accession talks and start of the so-called screening process. According to information from the meeting of the Ministerial Council, Germany, Great Britain and France were indifferent towards the European Commission’s proposal.

- The EU Ministerial Council decided the Macedonian date for EU negotiations to be discussed by the presidency of Ireland but it obliged the European Commission in spring to reexamine the reforms from the accession dialogue. European Commissioner Stefan Fule is satisfied with this conclusion although his proposal was not accepted. Fule admitted that not only Athens, but also Sofia, was loud with its remarks regarding Macedonia and he is sure that Skopje, Sofia and Athens will soon solve the problems.

Bulgaria seems to have cleared up Tuesday all dilemmas regarding its position to setting Macedonia a date for opening EU membership negotiations. Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev and Prime Minister Boyko Borisov have jointly built Bulgaria’s position to the Macedonia-related item at the ongoing summit of the European Council in Brussels.

“Bulgaria is going to be one of the countries that will not support setting of a date to its southwestern neighbor for opening EU membership negotiations,” said President Plevneliev’s office Tuesday.

The Montenegrin scenario with a timeframe of six months for opening membership negotiations is the most auspicious option Macedonia expects from the European Council and the EU Summit, government sources say. According to this option, in January next year, Macedonia will begin preparing a framework for membership negotiations, for which, according to the same sources, it is fully prepared at the moment. The name issue will probably have to be resolved during this period as well. The issue, however, will remain under UN auspices and the EU is not going to seek a different institutional way of resolving it but will work together with the government on the preparations for membership negotiations.

The decision is expected to be taken Tuesday by the ministers of foreign affairs of the EU. However, if no consensus is reached, the final decision may be left to the heads of state and government at the summit to be held Thursday and Friday.

“The project of salary payment by efficiency is going to survive,” said Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski Sunday and explained that the project had long been prepared, thought-out and developed in cooperation with doctors. According to Gruevski, the project aims to help doctors who do their job responsibly and with dedication and encourage those who work unprofessionally to become more dedicated to their job.

“If there are any problems regarding the allotment of points, we are ready to discuss it. However, we are not ready to discuss any requests to cancel the project since this a project we have long prepared and have promised it to our citizens as part of our election program,” the prime minister stressed.

He explained that this was a crucial reform of the health care sector and that as prime minster he firmly backed its implementation.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule, who has so far pushed most for the idea that Macedonia should be set a date for opening membership negotiations with the responsibility to resolve the name issue in the early stage of the negotiations, only a few days before the EU summit praised the Greek memorandum and appealed to Macedonia to take the chance that Athens offered with this move, Nova Makedonija reports.

In his speech delivered at the Wednesday conference “Friends of the EU” on the Western Balkans, he said it was important for the authorities in Skopje not to trust that the solution to the name issue rested in the creativity of the people from the European Commission or that the members of the Council would find a magic solution. As Radio Free Europe reported, he said that a solution was possible only with an open policy toward the neighbors, adding that he closely followed the communication between the Macedonian and Bulgarian authorities.

“I am happy to see that Greece is taking important steps for progress. The memorandum of understanding creates a good foundation for progress and we hope that Skopje is not going to miss the chance” Fule said.  

-    Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki, who attends the ministerial meeting of the OSCE in Dublin, called for support from the European ministers in setting Macedonia a date for opening EU accession talks. On the sidelines of the summit, Poposki had talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who said the USA remained Macedonia’s main supporter in the EU and NATO.

- Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki took part Wednesday in a meeting of NATO foreign ministers with non-NATO ISAF contributing nations in Brussels. According to Poposki, it has been decided Macedonia to resume its military participation in ISAF after 2014 as part of the training program for Afghan security forces.

Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki responded to the letter of Bulgarian counterpart Nikolay Mladenov in which he writes that he shares the same opinion that our frequent communication is turning into a substantial and concrete dialogue based on European principles and values. According to Poposki, this dialogue will contribute e two countries to see each other without prejudices and to act as true and sincere friends and praised the proposal for an agreement on neighborliness and cooperation. For that purpose, Poposki said, we would immediately start to setting up a joint working group and differences should be overcome with mutual respect and trust.

Two weeks since the strike of doctors began, Health Minister Nikola Todorov said Friday that the strike was masterminded by the opposition and announced sanctions for the strikers unless the strike stopped the following week.

“I am going to insist on the implementation of this reform, not out of spite, a whim or vanity, but because I believe in the principle of the reform. Over the past period, we have been witnesses of an ‘orchestrated’ dissatisfaction of doctors. I used the word ‘orchestrated’ because it was very carefully created with the aim of attaining the set goal,” Minister Todorov said.

He also sent a message to SDSM that political parties gain credibility through implementation of reforms, procurement of equipment, construction of hospitals, and cutting prices of medications, none of which was done when SDSM was in office.

In a letter sent to Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov proposes three steps for normalization of relations between the two countries as a condition for Bulgaria to support Macedonia’s European integration.

The first condition that Minister Mladenov suggests is signing an agreement on good-neighborly relations to be drafted by the highest European standards and based on the declaration that the two countries signed in 1999. The second step is building infrastructure for closer cooperation and creation of joint working groups with the aim of improving relations in key areas. And the third step that Sofia suggests is forming a council at a high level in the form of annual inter-governmental meetings.

-    Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski is leaving for Albanian Friday where he is set to meet his Albanian counterpart Sali Berisha. An agreement will also be signed on opening the new border crossing Dzepciste-Trebiste, which would ease the circulation of people from both sides of the border. 

- UN mediator Matthew Nimetz on Tuesday expressed some old but also new suggestions for a name solution before ambassadors Jolevski and Vassilakis. Following the meeting, Nimetz said that he highly appreciates the efforts of the European Commission that wants to find a name solution and expressed readiness to visit the region for talks before or after the New Year or a new meeting to be held in New York. At the same time, he demanded of Greece to respect the judgment of The Hague but Greece now insists Macedonia to accept all proposals before starting to negotiate for an EU membership.

- President Gjorge Ivanov summoned EU ambassador Aivo Orav on Monday for urgent consultations due to his naming of Macedonians as "Slav-Macedonians" in his speech before members of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs. Ivanov urged Orav to apologize in public to the Macedonian people and show respect to the founding principle of self-determination and self-naming. Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki stated that everyone who represents the EU should take into account the interpersonal respect and the right to self-determination.

The European Commission should say in no uncertain terms whether it backs the statement of Aivo Orav, EU Ambassador to Macedonia, who, instead of Macedonians, has recently used the term Slav Macedonians several times, Nova Makedonija reports.  Is the politics that is not just unproductive but also offending to Macedonians being promoted into official by the back door exactly through Ambassador Orav? This is not a blunder or a slipup by Ambassador Orav; it is rather continuation of the policies of Brussels, which, under pressure from Greek officials, questions the Macedonian identity, which, however, questions again the credibility of the EC and the Union itself due to the fact that it openly puts itself at the service of Athens in its denial of everything Macedonian, experts say.

- 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.