The Government announces realization of a few Turkish investments over the next few months. Turkish companies from the sectors of civil engineering, food, chemical industry, finances and insurance are expected to enter Macedonian. The names of the companies are kept a secret for now. There is some information only about Sutas, the firm that is interested in taking over Swedmilk.

“It is going to be a huge investment for our farmers and stock breeders,” said the Minister without Portfolio, Hadi Nezir.

- European Commissioner Stefan Fule and PM Nikola Gruevski on Thursday in Skopje officially launched the Macedonia-EU high level dialogue. Both of them agreed that the high level accession dialogue marked a new phase of Macedonia's efforts for EU integration, "a bridge that inevitably leads to membership talks with the EU. They also discussed another thorough document - a timeframe which represents an operational roadmap to meet these goals. The Government has vowed to adopt the operational roadmap by mid-April. Fule expects to see the results in May, when future priorities will be also discussed. Fule and Gruevski did not address the name issue at all.

- The European Parliament, with 582 votes ‘in favor,’ 70 ‘against’ and 34 MEPs who abstained from voting, adopted Wednesday the resolution on Macedonia in 2011. MEPs urged the Council of EU to set a date for start of membership talks with the EU as soon as possible. Still, majority of MEPs stressed that the main problem for unblocking the Euro-integration process is the name row between Macedonia and Greece.

In the city of Burrel, Albania, a crowd of young people set fire to the Macedonian flag chanting slogans about Greater Albania, Albanian media report. The Macedonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted swiftly Tuesday, condemning the incident.

The protest was staged in response to the recent murder of two young men in Gostivar. Albanian media report that violence against ethnic Albanian high-school students was also a reason for the protests.

The group protested first in the center of the city chanting slogans against “the Macedonian racism.” Then a few boys trampled the state flag of the Republic of Macedonia and after failing to rip it, they set it on fire. They chanted: “Down with Macedonia,” and “Down with Macedonian Hooligans.”

The protests staged outside the Macedonian Embassy in Tirana Tuesday, organized by a civic organization, were peaceful yet insulting and anti-Macedonian slogans were chanted. About a hundred people carrying anti-Macedonian signs that read “We are people with history, who are you?” “We want unification of all Albanians,” etc, protested outside the Embassy. The Embassy was secured by the Albanian police and after the protests the crowd left the place peacefully.

The Interior Ministry registered over the weekend a series of incidents in Skopje, Tetovo and Prilep. In almost all of them, young people were attacked and beaten for no reason. Some of the assailants have been detained as others are still being hunted, Nova Makedonija reports.

A boy ended up in hospital Sunday beaten by a group of assailants in the neighborhood of Trizla in Prilep. The motive for the attacks is unknown and the identity of the assailants has not been found out yet either.  Police are still searching for a large group of assailants that attacked a 17-year-old youth in Prilep. He was brutally beaten up by young men aged 17-21 for no reason.

Police detained Sunday five persons suspected of having beaten a 15-year-old on Orce Nikolov Street neat the Internet cafe Enternet. All assailants are known to the police for having “thick” records for thefts, robberies and violent conduct. The Interior Ministry informed that criminal charges would be pressed against all of them.

The latest bus incidents in Skopje, when about a dozen citizens of Albanian and Macedonian ethnicity were severely injured, gave rise again to fears that Macedonia might be ahead of a new interethnic conflict. Experts as well as politicians warned that the incidents must not be seen in isolation and that perpetrators should be found immediately to stop interethnic revenge from spiraling out of control. A swift reaction, an address to the citizens by Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and BDI leader Ali Ahmeti with calming tones, and urgent government and parliament sittings have been called for Thursday by both experts and the opposition. The seriousness of the situation is indicated also by the announcements of extraordinary meetings of the highest bodies of BDI and PDSH. There was no government reaction Thursday to the incidents or an announcement of an extraordinary sitting, Dnevnik reports.

The Judgment of the International Court of Justice is slowly but inexorably attaining the expected and announced effects. Macedonia is no longer the only party urged to be active and dedicated to the negotiations, Nova Makedonija says.

The pressure is now being transferred to the other party in the name dispute as well. In fact, diplomats say, there are two messages being sent to Greece. The first is sent through the statements of the European officials that the Judgment from The Hague should be honored.

They are primarily addressed to official Athens considering The Hague Judgment is in Macedonia’s favor and, as expected, Macedonia honors it and scores points with it, diplomats say.

The second message is sent through the high-level dialogue to begin with Brussels next week, showing the Greek authorities that despite their block to setting Macedonia a date, the negotiations will begin with or without them.

The high-level dialogue between Macedonia and the EU is a great opportunity for turning a new leaf in the relations between Macedonia and the EU and a bridge to opening membership negotiations with the EU, said EU Commissioner Stefan Fule and Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs Teuta Arifi in Brussels Tuesday.

“The dialogue is not a replacement of the accession talks, yet the opening of the two very important chapters, 23 and 34, will let us show we are resolved to implement the reforms in sensitive areas,” Arifi told Dnevnik.

She said that at the meeting with Fule she was officially presented the guidelines of the dialogue concerning five priorities to be held in Skopje on 15 March.

“We are ready to work together on the priorities: freedom of speech, judicial reform, public administration reform, election system reform and economy,” Deputy Prime Minister Arifi said.

Greece does not benefit at all from blocking Macedonia’s NATO membership. It is doing it by inertia. However, Macedonia is not going to play the Greek destructive game, said Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki. There are still no valid arguments why we should not be allowed to become a NATO member state even though we met all criteria. Therefore the minister expects reiteration of the recommendation for setting Macedonia a date for opening membership negotiations and progress in the Euro-Atlantic integration.

Nobody disputes the way of taking decisions in the North-Atlantic Alliance based on a consensus if the consensus is in the interest of the Alliance and Macedonia’s membership is in the best interest of Macedonia as well as the region, including Greece. Minister Poposki also said that Athens had not yet assumed an official position to the Judgment of the International Court of Justice in The Hague whereby it is evidently  trying the suspend the Judgment.

The peaceful protest that took place in Gostivar Thursday following the double homicide by a border police member was meant to ease tension not just in the city but also the whole country. Unfortunately, after the protest rally ended and most protestors peacefully went away, radical groups of Albanians attacked assets owned by Macedonians and literally demolished the center of Gostivar, Utrinski vesnik reports.

In an unseen rampage, boutiques, coffee shops, a butcher shop, a bakery, a store for home appliances, and a fast food shop, all of them owned by Macedonians, were demolished. The windows of the judiciary building, the local office of the power company EVN and the forest company Sar were also shattered.

 

Macedonian PM Gruevski and his Greek counterpart Papademos had a meeting on the sidelines of the summit of the European People’s Parties in Brussels Thursday. They talked about promoting dialogue and good neighborly relations between the two countries.

Pacifying tones, condemnation for the radical groups stoking up interethnic tension as well as severe criticism of the institutions and their interpretation of the murder constitute the echo to the recent incident in Gostivar when a police officer off duty killed two men.

The situation in Gostivar is tense. There is heavier police security in streets put on high alert. Even those who had taken days off were summoned to work, as members of the rapid deployment unit can be seen at places too. Fortunately, by Wednesday afternoon, no police intervention had been registered.

“We are going to do all in our power to calm the atmosphere and prevent anything undesired from happening,” said Ivo Kotevski, Assistant Interior Minister.

- Australian senator Gary Humphries following the meeting with Parliament Speaker Trajko Veljanovski stated that more of his colleagues and MPs are aware that it is much more appropriate for Australia to recognize Macedonia under its constitutional name. Veljanovski also met with Peter Slipper, House of Representatives Speaker and Senate Speaker John Hogg and requested gradual annulment of visas for Macedonian nationals.

Resolving the name issue will take five years or maybe more, said Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski in an interview with the German paper Die Welt. Therefore, he says, he went to Germany to meet Chancellor Merkel in order to seek assistance and support for Macedonia’s membership of the EU and NATO.

“Our admission to NATO and the EU has been delayed for too long because of the name issue. This is vitally important to our economy as well as for the peace in the Western Balkans. I am here to seek support from Chancellor Angela Merkel for our important national agenda,” says Prime Minister Gruevski.

After UN-appointed name issue mediator Matthew Nimetz has left, Macedonia and Greece continue their diplomatic struggle over Macedonia’s name, before the NATO summit in Chicago, Dnevnik reports.

The United Macedonian Diaspora sent a petition to US President Barack Obama and the leaders of the NATO member states, in which the Alliance is called on to grant Macedonia membership at the coming summit in Chicago.

“Macedonia’s invitation to join NATO in Chicago, in May 2012, would only support NATO's ultimate mission: a Europe that is democratic, strong, and free. Macedonia has satisfied all the complex technical criteria for NATO membership, and yet, it remains outside the Alliance due to Greece's willful violation of international law. We ask NATO leaders to take a stand for justice, and grant Macedonia the NATO membership it clearly deserves,” the UMD letter says.

With the message that the Greek crisis should not be an obstacle to the name issue talks, mediator Matthew Nimetz closed his visit to the region on Wednesday.

He said he received reassurance by the Greek officials that Athens has a sincere wish to resolve the name issue.

“I heard it clearly from Foreign Minister Stavros Dimas that the Greek Government is sincerely disposed and interested in resolving the name issue, which is an important issue for the entire region. The goal is finding a mutually acceptable solution,” Nimetz said after meeting Minister Dimas, adding that the Greek minister encouraged him to continue the mandate he received from the UN Secretary General.

The Macedonian identity has to be protected rather than be left on the side when resolving the name issue considering Greece may later make a problem out of the naming of our language and nation as Macedonian, diplomats comment following the dilemma raised by Matthew Nimetz’s statement in Skopje that there is no UN resolution about the people’s identity and that the people of Macedonia have their own identity and that they themselves define it.

Can anyone claim that the identity is not part of the negotiations about the name issue considering that in 2008 and 2009, Skopje and Athens openly discussed ideas put forward by Nimetz that included names also for the language and the nation? For example, Nimetz’s package of October 2008 tabled in New York included the proposal “Republic of Northern Macedonia” for broad international use and double solutions for the language and the nation – “Macedonian” in parallel with “the language/nation of the Republic of Northern Macedonia.”

- Mediator Matthew Nimetz had Monday three separate meetings with President Gjorgje Ivanov, PM Gruevski and Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki. According to Nimetz, he did not bring a new proposal but the goal of this visit was to determine the positions and see what kind of progress can be achieved in the name negotiations. According to Nimetz, the judgment made by The Hague-based International Court of Justice refers to both sides and they are obliged to respect it.

- President Gjorge Ivanov on Friday is to convene the state leadership to a coordination meeting ahead of the visit of UN mediator in the Macedonian-Greek dispute Matthew Nimetz, to Skopje. The meeting will focus on the pace of UN-mediated negotiations on settling the dispute with Greece over Macedonia's constitutional name, the President's Cabinet said in a press release on Thursday.

- Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos accepted PM Nikola Gruevski’s proposal for a meeting in early March. In his letter, Papademos stresses that the name should be resolved within the UN-mediated negotiations and considers the forthcoming visit of UN mediator Matthew Nimetz to Skopje and Athens should push the negotiating process towards reaching a solution. According to Papademos, Greece attaches great importance to the bilateral relations as demonstrated by the cooperation in numerous sectors, especially in the economic sector.

 

Germany is a strong supporter of Macedonia and there are excellent political and economic relations between the two countries, assessed Wednesday German Chancellor Angela Merkel and PM Nikola Gruevski Commenting Greece's violation of the Interim Accord, Merkel stated that negotiations aimed at finding solution to the name issue should resume. She urged that justice and international law should be seen as priorities, leaving behind obstruction. The German Chancellor - who called the country by Macedonia's constitutional name throughout the news conference - said she expected Western Balkan countries to meet required conditions, following the example of Croatia and Slovenia, before joining Euro-Atlantic institutions. PM Nikola Gruevski stressed that Macedonia will resume with the reforms and that Macedonia is a de facto member of NATO as Macedonian troops are taking part in the NATO-led missions.

Macedonian consumers have started saving energy considering that the Government declared an energy crisis and recommended saving to avoid restrictions and an increase in the electricity price. Exports of Macedonia-made electricity have also been curbed until 29 February. If the situation is normalized in the meantime, the curbs may be lifted.

According to Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Pesevski, the decision has been taken because the functioning of the energy system and its sustainability have been seriously upset, while the shortage of electricity cannot be compensated for with imports. The low water level in accumulations is an additional problem, while at the same time electricity consumption has increased considerably because of the extremely cold weather, Vecer reports.

 “Households will get maximum protection and therefore they are the last to suffer reductions. On the other hand, they should save energy to help maintain the energy system stability,” Pesevski appealed.

- After a long-standing lobbying campaign, the Australian government has withdrawn the so-called Slav-Macedonian Directive, by which the Macedonian community was renamed in 1994, said the Australian-Macedonian Human Rights Committee. This means that the Australian Government practically recognized the Macedonian nation.

-    The renowned professor and member of the Center for Transatlantic Relations, Daniel Serwer, said the coming summit of NATO in Chicago is a possibility to right the injustice done against Macedonia at the summit of the Alliance in Bucharest in 2008.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is going to meet Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski on Tuesday, Dnevnik says in its online edition. Gruevski and Merkel are expected to discuss Macedonia’s NATO integration.  The Macedonian prime minister is going to inform Merkel about Macedonia’s commitment to finding a solution to the dispute with Greece and about Macedonia’s wish for the process of resolution of the name issue under UN auspices to be speeded up. The Merkel-Gruevski meeting is scheduled a week before UN-appointed name issue mediator Matthew Nimetz’s visit to Skopje.

(A column by Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung )

Probably many Germans had not heard much about Macedonia before the match to remember by the Macedonian men’s handball team at the recent European Handball Championship. The handball stars demonstrated that equality and justice apply to all and that success depends solely on one’s own effort. In another field, unfortunately, the rules that apply to others do not apply to us: Macedonia met all criteria for NATO membership and the Alliance confirmed it at the Summit in Bucharest in 2008. However, Macedonia is not allowed to be part of it. It is de facto a member of NATO and de jure it is not.

The membership is a strategic government commitment. Over 85 percent of the people of Macedonia support the integration. The Macedonian peacekeeping forces in Iraq and Afghanistan share with their allies the challenges threatening freedom. Half of the budget of the Macedonian defense goes to Macedonia’s contribution in Afghanistan. Our peacekeepers are to be credited for the safety of the base in Kandahar and have been decorated for their operations.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General for the name issue, Ambassador Matthew Nimetz, will be visiting Macedonia on 21-22 February. At his meetings with President Gjorge Ivanov, PM Nikola Gruevski and Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki, he will discuss the name issue resolution and the dynamics of talks in the coming period. After Macedonia, Greece will be Ambassador Nimetz’s next stop.  

The Greek objection to Macedonia’s accession to NATO over its name is just as irrational as when Canada and Mexico would object to the name of the United States of America for containing the world “America” given that America is larger than the USA,” Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki said in an interview with Washington Times.

“The Greek position is unreasonable,” he complained.

Macedonia’s accession to NATO remains to be a strategic priority of the country. Macedonia’s integration into the Alliance is going to benefit all, including Greece, which will then border only NATO member states. Macedonia’s integration into the Alliance will also be important for the relations between Pristina and Belgrade, the Balkans will be safer and the country will turn from an importer to an exporter of security. However, for the time being, we receive no signals from Athens that a radical change in their positions to this issue is possible, said Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki.

All NATO member states, including neighbors, should support Macedonia in being extended an invitation to join NATO. This is the message that Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki has been voicing at his meetings in Washington so that the issue of Macedonia’s membership of NATO is raised at the summit of the Alliance in Chicago, Dnevnik reports.

Minister Poposki, who attended Thursday the Prayer Breakfast hosted by US President Barack Obama, told Dnevnik that the US officials he met had no dilemma that Macedonia should be admitted to NATO as soon as possible.

“Macedonia has met all conditions to close this chapter and become a NATO member state. It would be logical for us to have the support of all member states, including our neighbors, considering that in the past enlargements of NATO the biggest support came from neighbors,” Poposki said.