Macedonia and the U.S.A. have agreed on new forms of military cooperation. In September, the first Macedonian military personnel will leave for training in the U.S.A., and next year's U.S. draft-budget will include one million dollars for Macedonia from the funds intended for the member-states of the "Partnership for peace" initiative.
Macedonia's Defense Minister Blagoy Handziski stated this on Saturday afternoon at the Skopje airport, on his arrival from the eight-day official visit of the Macedonian military delegation to the U.S. Defense Department and the Pentagon.
Handziski refused to answer the questions concerning his statement that Macedonia was ready to make concessions in relation to the flag and to change article 49 of the Constitution, saying he had yet to see how his statements were conveyed here, suspecting some of his words might have been taken out of context.
On Saturday, minister Handziski met with the UN Secretary-General Boutros Ghali, the Macedonian Foreign Ministry announced.
Minister Handziski conveyed greetings to the Secretary- General and repeated the invitation from President Kiro Gligorov to pay a visit to Macedonia, which was accepted with pleasure.
The longer and open discussion mainly focused on the UN peacekeeping mission in Macedonia (UNPREDEP) and its function following the separation of the Command.
Both sides agreed that the UN peacekeeping mission in Macedonia was the most successful peacekeeping mission to-date, that a special representative of the Secretary-General had to be appointed as soon as possible, in relation to which the possible candidates were discussed.
Another issue raised in the discussion was the situation in Bosnia, the positions of the UNPROFOR forces, the need for them to stay on in Bosnia, and the development of the situation in case a decision for their withdrawal is made.
In the talks, both sides agreed that in order to fully stabilize the south of the Balkans, it is necessary for the differences and misunderstandings in the Macedonian-Greek relations to be overcome as soon as possible, and to fulfill the prerequisites for the start of negotiations.
Participating in the meeting were also the Under Secretary of the UN Peacekeeping Operations Kofi Annan, the Macedonian representative to the UN Denko Maleski and the Macedonian representative to the U.S.A. Ljubica Acevska.
The Greek media assess that during his stay in Washington, the Macedonian Defense Minister Blagoja Handziski left the impression of a "provocative personality who is unfamiliar with history," Makpress reports.
Handziski is criticized for stating at the press conference in Washington that no country, not even Greece could stake the exclusive right on Alexander the Great, and that Homer's language had more similarities with the Macedonian than the Greek language.
Handziski surprised not only the Greek, but also the Macedonian reporters, according to comments, with the statement that the issue of the Macedonian minority has not been tabled in the negotiations with Greece. "Macedonia does not deal with the minorities of other countries, i.e. with Greece's internal affairs," the Macedonian Defense Minister added. The Greek reporters interpreted this statement as "backing down from the Macedonian irredentist propaganda."
Yesterday, the President of the Republic of Macedonia Kiro Gligorov received a delegation of the Council of Europe. In a long and friendly discussion it was mutually assessed that Macedonia's admission to the Council of Europe is of key importance for the further development and international affirmation of the Republic of Macedonia, as well as for the stability in the region at large. The members of the delegation presented their views and said that the place of the Republic of Macedonia is in the Council of Europe, as well as in other European associations.
Yesterday, the delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe had separate meetings at a state level with Macedonian Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski, with Minister of Justice Vlado Popovski, with Interior Minister Ljubomir Frckovski, and with Minister of Education Emilija Simovska.
The discussions were on concrete issues connected to the legislative system of Macedonia and to its compliance with European standards. During this, the second visit, the delegation of the Council of Europe expressed great satisfaction with the hitherto development of events in this field, compared to what they had noticed during their first visit.
After the meetings and discussions with the Macedonian political peak, the parliamentary delegation of the Council of Europe had a news conference at which they emphasized that "Macedonia is a democratic country. Perfect democracies are rare even in the Council of Europe."
The representatives of the Council of Europe from Great Britain, Switzerland, and Luxembourg gave a positive evaluation on the internal situation in Macedonia and said that they did not think that there is a substantial obstacle for Macedonia's admission to this European institution.
They explained that one of the biggest problem facing Macedonia is the existence of ethnic groups, but after they had discussed the present problems, including the case of the opening of a university in Tetovo, with representatives of minorities in Macedonia, the parliamentarians emphasized that there are no obstacles for the admission of Macedonia to the Council of Europe.
The European parliamentarians stressed that they always listen to the opinions of the opposition and that in the discussions with important politicians who are not in parliament, they received a positive reply on making Macedonia a member of this institution.
There are 32 member-states of the Council of Europe now, and as it was announced at the news conference, Albania will join it in June. Macedonia is one of the last countries that will be admitted to it, but as it was stated, Albania had applied before Macedonia. The parliamentarians also emphasized that they must take into consideration that there is instability in Kosovo that could be reflected on Albania and Macedonia.
The parliamentarians positively assessed the internal situation in Albania and Macedonia and they said that they would recommend the two countries to sign an agreement on stability, for which Macedonia has already demonstrated its good will.
It was also pointed out that the Council will once again be faced with Greece's opposition to the admission of Macedonia, but they also said that this institution has the wish to overcome this problem.
Macedonian Parliament's President Stojan Andov will receive the parliamentarians of the Council of Europe, after which their visit to Macedonia will end.
The Macedonian authorities are for full peace and stability in the region of the Balkans. This was stressed in Australia by the UN Secretary-General Boutros Ghali, while discussing the role of the World Organization in preventive diplomacy, whereby he called Macedonia by its constitutional name.
The correspondent of the Macedonian Radio Zoran Kjosevski reported that this gesture of the Secretary-General created great satisfaction among the Macedonians, especially as the interview with Ghali was conducted by a journalist of Greek origins.
The idea about opening an Albanian-English university, now expanded by George Soros into an Albanian-English-Macedonian university, as it seems, might soon be realized, Radio Tirana reports, calling upon Albanian sources from Macedonia.
The Albanian side, the Radio reports, accepted the idea to open such a university as a solution, and the Macedonian side is already agreeing with that. In this context, the statement of the Macedonian Interior Minister Ljubomir Frckovski is stressed, who said that if a private or public university was in question, the classes would have to be held in one foreign and naturally, also in Macedonian language, Makpress reports.
On Friday, at around 13.00 hours, in the region of the watchtower "Bogorodica," near Gevgelija, the corporal Metodi Ilija Karatulkov was fatally injured while carrying out his duties. He was born on the 4th of July, 1976 in Titov Veles.
As the Ministry of Defense says further in its announcement, Karatulkov was serving time in the army. The judge from the District court in Skopje, who is in charge of the case, says it is a case of suicide. The Ministry of Defense is categorically denying information that a border incident is in question.
According to the information of the Ministry of Finance, the budgetary revenues in the period January-April, this year, note an increase compared to the same period last year. Namely, from sales tax - 13% , from additional taxes - 11% ("akciza"), from personal income tax - 5%. However, this increase is still not as planned. Namely, in the first four months of this year, it was planned to gather MKD 2.5 billion (US$ 65.6 million) from sales tax, but only 66% of the money planned or MKD 1.656 billion (US$ 43.5 million) were gathered. The additional taxes ("akciza") were planned to bring in MKD 5.56 billion (US$ 146 million), while only MKD 3.47 billion (US$ 91 million) or 62% of the government projections were gathered. The situation with the personal income tax is somewhat better, where MKD 2.9 billion (US$ 76 million) of the totally planned MKD 3.2 billion (US$ 84 million) or 90% of the projections, were gathered.
Two days ago, the Italian Government added Macedonia to the countries to whose banks it approves credits, which is in the interest of the Italian businessmen, who could not enter any greater projects without these guarantees.
With this decision of the Committee for running the agency "SACE," the first installment of the credit of DEM 130 million (ITL 158 billion) also includes Macedonia, together with Algeria, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Russia, Serbia, the Ivory Coast, Egypt, Guinea-Bissau and Nigeria.
According to information, Macedonia will be given a credit of DEM 11 million from this sum of money, however, an additional credit of DEM 10 million is also expected.
The Italian Foreign Minister Suzana Anjeli stated in the Italian Parliament that "Italy wants to concretely prove its permanent interest in the economic development of Macedonia and therefore it will use the possibility which is offering itself already at the start of this week to determine the present and future cooperation."
The Law for business associations which is expected to be passed by the end of this year, foresees the founding capital for the firms in the state to reach DEM 10,000 for associations with limited liability and DEM 50,000 for stock companies.
According to the information from the Institute for payment operations, there are 85,000 private companies working in Macedonia, but only 47,000 of them have submitted annual financial statements. The trade companies submitted the least annual statements, of which there are 47,000 over all, but only between 16-17,000 sent in their financial statements, which means that the rest did not record any sales last year.
Exactly because of this, such a law is expected to eliminate those firms that are not working.
It is believed that it will be easy for many firms to reach the sum of DEM 10,000 as founding deposit, seeing they have shops or business premises that can be placed as deposit. Because of this, it is envisaged for a third of the investment to be in cash, and for the cash sum not to be less than DEM 5,000.
At the latest session of the Board of Directors of the World Bank, the opening of a permanent representative mission of the bank in Skopje was confirmed. It will have the task to follow the programs of the bank and the International Development Association (IDA) in Macedonia. In essence, the idea behind this is to change the status of the present mission of the World Bank in Macedonia, which has been working as a temporary office for a couple of months. According to information from the Macedonian Government, Alberto Eguren will stay on as the head of mission in Skopje.
The Managing board of the "Skopje Fair" has decided to give the right of purchase, through additional investments, to the managerial team of the fair, made up of eight employees of which five are on the Managing board and one Italian businessman, a broker at the Rome exchange.
According to the offer of the managerial team, an additional investment of DEM 3.2 million will be deposited into the account of the fair at one, while the untransformed capital of this company, valued at DEM 5.7 million will be purchased within five years, while another DEM 1.5 million will be invested successively in the outlined investment program for development.