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.

-    Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki met French President Francois Hollande at the 14th Summit of La Francophonie in Congo and urged him to support the setting of a date for Macedonia for opening membership negotiations at the summit of the EU in December.

 

Macedonia has been issued a positive report from the European Commission with the highest grades ever and the fourth in a row recommendation for launching EU membership negotiations. It is important to our country that Brussels has restored to the pages of the report the adjective ‘Macedonian’ and has made a mention of the Judgment of the International Court of Justice. The European Commission believes that setting a date for opening membership negotiations is important because it would encourage the authorities to continue carrying out reforms, would increase the EU credibility and would strengthen interethnic relations.

A novelty is that the European Commission offers in the report a formula according to which the name issue should be resolved in a parallel with the EU membership negotiations.

- The European Commission on Wednesday will officially present Macedonia’s annual progress report in the European Parliament.  EU Commissioner Stefan Fule will first present the report in the European Parliament’s committee on foreign affairs and he will afterwards hold a press-conference.

The old manuscripts from Macedonia in the Royal Museum of Mariemont in Morlanwelz, Belgium, will be exhibited under Macedonia’s constitutional name. The exhibition entitled “A Thousand Years of Literary Tradition in Macedonia” is set to opened Tuesday at 19.30 by Culture Minister Elizabeta Kanceska-Milevska.

The recent announcement of the exhibition of 39 manuscripts from Macedonia (dating from the period from the 13th to the 19th centuries) in Belgium provoked reactions in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian news agency Fokus reported that the Royal Museum was going to reconsider the exhibition since it was inappropriate for the manuscripts to be referred to as Macedonian. The Macedonian news agency MIA reported that Bulgarian diplomats, historians and MEPS put pressure so the exhibition was renamed or cancelled altogether. The case culminated when the Royal Museum removed from its website the post announcing the exhibition. The Macedonian Ministry of Culture explained that the post had been removed following the reaction from the Macedonian Embassy in Brussels considering that Macedonia was referred to as FYROM in the news about the exhibition.

On Friday at about midnight, Nikola Gruevski’s Government was given a vote of confidence. Only 42 MPs from SDSM voted against. After a 14 hours’ debate, the argument of opposition SDSM that VMRO-DPMNE and BDI threatened interethnic relations and the country’s European integration with their 2-month fake confrontation was not accepted. Certain experts even believe that the opposition helped Gruevski solidify his position and raise his ratings. One of the arguments of these experts is that it is illogical to publicly declare a wish for the government to fall while not wanting it for real.

During the session, the MPs of SDSM asked who was in control of the Macedonian Army, what the Macedonian anthem was, what will happen to the schools signs in Cair, what the outcome of the initiative for passing a law on defenders will be, etc. The opposition trusts that the government swings interethnic problems to cover up the citizens’ true aches.

- Greece remains on its red lines and demands one name for Macedonia for overall use. In the letter to Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki, Greek counterpart Dimitris Avramopoulos also demands the new name of the country to be with clear-defined qualifier that will not leave any vagueness surrounding the territory of Macedonia and the region Macedonia in Greece’s northern part. Avramopoulos sent the memorandum of Greece’s allegedly good intentions to the US, the EU, NATO and mediator Matthew Nimetz. Grigoris Delavekouras, spokesman of Greece’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, disagrees with Kanal 5 correspondent that this could mean that the Macedonian side should accept Greece’s red lines and adds that the only thing it demands of us is positive feedback of what is of common importance for both countries in reaching a name solution.

Government spokesman Aleksandar Gjorgjiev confirmed that Minister Poposki has received the letter from his Greek counterpart Avramopolous and briefly said that the letter will be reviewed with proper attention. Professor Denko Maleski says that Greece’s proposal should be reviewed cautiously whereas former ambassador Risto Nikovski said that Macedonia should give a counter-proposal.

It is uncertain whether and when the meeting for voting confidence in the Government is held although Parliament Speaker Trajko Veljanoski scheduled it for Friday at noon. Dnevnik has learned from sources of Veljanoski’s Office that the Speaker, based on the Rules of Procedure, is going to demand that the MPs of the government and the opposition define their strategies for the meeting Friday with the chiefs of their parliamentary groups who will then communicate them to him. However, the opposition has long been boycotting the coordination meetings with Speaker Veljanoski and refused to say whether they would attend the coordination meeting.

According to parliamentary sources, Veljanoski invited Wednesday the coordinators of the parliamentary groups, including SDSM, as initiator of the no-confidence motion, to a coordination meeting Thursday at 10.30 am so they can define the course of the parliamentary session Friday. They say Veljanoski expects the chiefs of the parliamentary groups to come to the coordination meeting considering it is an ad hoc meeting for a specific parliamentary session, at which the rules of game between the government and the opposition need to be define, and not a session for MPs’ queries where the address proportion is 2 against 1 in favor of the opposition. Veljanoski is going to invoke the Parliament Law and Article 216 of the Rules of Procedure, which says that the order of the MPs from parliamentary groups and those who are not members of any parliamentary group yet will be participating in the debate is defined in an agreement between the Speaker and the coordinators of the parliamentary groups before the start of the session.

 

- President Gjorge Ivanov is to pay an official visit to Bosnia & Herzegovina on Thursday and Friday and realize several meetings with Bosnian high officials. 

Opening membership negotiations between Macedonia and the EU is going to create a favorable climate for finding a mutually acceptable solution to the name issue soon, said, among other things, EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule in Athens during a debate entitled “EU Enlargement: The European Agenda as a Driving Force of Reforms.”

The event at which Fule talked was organized by the EU Office in Athens and the Greek Foundation ELIAMEP. In his address at this event, Commissioner Fule was far less reserved than at his meeting with Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos, saying that Athens is urged to give a green light to opening membership negotiations between Macedonia and the EU.

“We know how sensitive the name issue is and how important it is for you, for the region and for the EU if the country continues the reforms and the effort to overcome nationalistic tendencies. With our active support through the High Level Accession Dialogue, the country has been provided with a new impetus in implementing EU-related reforms. The Commission has recommended opening membership negotiations, which is going to create a win-win situation – it is going to encourage reforms and consolidate interethnic relations. In addition, it is going to create a favorable climate for immediately seeking out a mutually acceptable solution to the name issue. It is important to overcome the name issue. We support the seeking out of a solution and are willing to provide aid,” Commissioner Fule said.

- Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki, who is paying a working visit to the Republic of Finland, met with his counterpart Erkki Tuomioja. Poposki got strong support for Macedonia’s European integration and the bilateral cooperation was assessed as good.

Matthew Nimetz, the UN-appointed name issue mediator, announced a new round of negotiations between the two negotiators, Zoran Jolevski of Macedonia and Adamantios Vassilakis of Greece, in New York in October. This means that the negotiations between Macedonia and Greece will be unblocked after a long impasse. In this regard, Greek Foreign Minister Avramopoulos reassured mediator Nimetz that in spite of the financial crisis, Greece had the capacity to deal with this issue. Nimetz also said that he was considering visiting the region again to make an assessment of the best timing for the meeting.

“The economic and financial situation in Greece is very serious. It is obvious that the Greek government is working very hard on the crisis and that the crisis is their top priority. Frankly, that is the top priority of the entire world. It is a big issue, yet Minister Avramopoulos reassured me that their government was fully capable of and interested in handling this problem, that there was a government in Greece and that it was capable of dealing with all issues. I don’t think the economic issues in Greece, however hard, should keep them from working on this issue as well and I hope it would be resolved,” Nimetz said.