The Information Service of the Assembly of the Western European Union informs that the President of the Republic of Macedonia Mr. Kiro Gligorov, in answer to an invitation from Sir Dudley Smith, President of the Assembly, has accepted to address the Assembly of the WEU during its Plenary Session, in Paris on May 20th.
The Defense Committee of the Assembly of WEU adopted on May 24th a report entitled "The Eastern Mediterranean." Part of this report is dedicated to Macedonia. The report says that since Greece imposed its unilateral trade embargo on Macedonia in 1994, the industrial output of the country has dropped 9%. Macedonia is suffering enormous damages due to higher transportation costs (50%).
Further on, the report determines that Macedonia's GDP in 1994 was less than half that of 1990. Registered unemployment is approximately 30%, with another 5% of the workforce on forced leave. The unemployment rate is 38.3%, with 185,000 unemployed and 60,000 are on extended vacation. A total of 129,000 employed have not received any salary for months.
The report says that the Greek embargo has cost the country $600 million. While, as a result of the UN sanctions against FR Yugoslavia, Macedonia has suffered losses amounting to $1.8 billion for the period May, 1992 to May, 1993, and $1.3 billion from June, 1993 to June, 1994.
Therefore, the Defense Committee recommends that the Council of the Western European Union reminds Greece of the importance the WEU Council attaches to the place of the OSCE in the European security architecture and urges this WEU member state to stop vetoing Macedonia's accession to the OSCE.
There have never been nor will there ever be secret negotiations between the Republic of Macedonia and Greece, at an inter-state level, Macedonia's Foreign Minister Stevo Crvenkovski stated at yesterday's press conference, thus denying the news on a domestic TV station that Nikos Grilakis is allegedly staying in Macedonia on a secret negotiating mission.
Mr. Crvenkovski stressed that at this moment, a new meeting with the mediators in the Greek-Macedonian dispute has not been arranged and that he is not prepared to talk about possible dates of the beginning of the direct negotiations. In continuation, Crvenkovski underlined that as concerns the direct negotiating process itself, "a maturing of the conditions is not noticed, i.e. at least some agreement over the key issue that the embargo can not be used as a means in the negotiations."
At yesterday's press conference, the spokesman of the Macedonian Government said that the Government has reviewed and adopted the proposal for the adoption of a Law on primary education. The law should help solve the dilemmas appearing in the educational sphere, regardless of the level. Mr. Ismail also pointed out that the draft-text of the law envisages that all citizens have the right to primary education in the mother tongue, regardless of national affiliation.
Mr. Ismail added that the primary education encompasses a total of 261,385 students, of which 183,409 are Macedonian, 71,767 are Albanian, 5,456 are Turkish and 753 Serbian.
"The situation in the religious sphere among our countrymen living in Australia, after a longer period of differences, has been normalized to the greatest extent," the metropolitan of Prespa and Pelagonija Mr. Petar, who led the delegation of the Macedonian Orthodox Church (MOC) that visited Australia in the past weeks, said at yesterday's press conference. Mr. Petar added that the reasons for the differences between the church communities making up the Macedonian Orthodox eparchy Australia should be sought in the local intolerances and individual leader aspirations, coupled with the activities of the political parties, which the church feels is impermissible when it comes to religious living.
An eparchy assembly was also held, which was attended by representatives of all church communities in Australia, and at which a new eparchy leadership was elected. The assembly sent a note to the Australian Government, in protest against the renaming of the Macedonians into Slav Macedonians.
The delegation of the MOC also had a couple of official meetings in the Lower House of the Victoria Parliament, with the president of New South Wales, Bob Corry, etc. The meetings focused, among the rest, also on the attempts of the federal authorities to rename the Macedonians into "Slav Macedonians," whereby it was emphasized that the Macedonians in Australia will never accepted this renaming, and the authorities were asked to withdraw the decision at once.
In a short while, this eparchy of the MOC should also receive its competent bishop, which will be decided by the Holy Synod of the MOC. The Macedonians in Australia want him to be with a permanent residence in Australia.
The inter-party combinations concerning the election of a new mayor of Skopje are entering a completely new phase these days. Namely, according to IMRO-DPMNU, the negotiations with one of the participants in the present town authorities (VMRO-MNDS) ended in total disaster. Seeing, on the other hand, that the votes of the deputies of the coalitions partners (IMRO-DPMNU and LP) are insufficient for the election of a new chairman of the Skopje Town Assembly, the IMRO-DPMNU leadership is in intensive negotiations this past week with the PDP-NDP group for their support of the candidate for mayor.
In IMRO-DPMNU, they are finding excuses for this step in the pragmatism promoted at the party's latest Congress, while the PDP deputy group already got a green light from its leadership for coalitioning. For the votes that PDP would "give" for the candidate for mayor from the ranks of IMRO-DPMNU, it would gain the vice-presidential position in the Skopje Town Assembly, that is to say, the chair presently occupied by VMRO- MNDS.
An agreements was reached at the meeting of the representatives of a number of Albanian associations and all political parties of the Albanians in Macedonia, held in Tetovo, two days ago - that in future, the Albanian political parties jointly review and present the fundamental questions pertaining to the advancement of the position of the Albanians in Macedonia, "Makpress" reports.
"The coordination of the stances will be done with the participation of intellectuals and presidents of the Albanian political parties in Macedonia. At a time when we, the Albanians in Macedonia, unlike the others, don't have scientific institutions that would be of help to the political parties, this form of consultation with the intellectuals is necessary, until a more appropriate form is found," is said in the announcement of the organizer of the meeting, the Union of the Albanian Intelligentsia in Macedonia.
The management of the University "Sts. Cyril and Methodius" adopted a decision in Skopje yesterday, according to which the Teacher's Colleges in Skopje and Shtip are turned into Faculties of Pedagogy. A paper explaining the need for the existence of Pedagogic faculties was submitted to the Ministry of Education yesterday, which has to then give an estimate. The Pedagogic faculties are expected to start with the new curriculum from October, with the start of the new academic year.
Over the weekend, the Greek TV station "SKY" informed about alleged opium-producing poppy plantations near the Dojran Lake, and pin-pointing the village Nikolik as the maid production center.
Makpress reports that on the territory of the Gevgelija municipality, poppies are planted on an area of 2 hectares, on land owned by individual producers.
Since February, 26 cases of brucellosis have been registered in the Kavadarci municipality. According to latest reports, the disease is spreading fast in the last couple of months.
Mile Petrov, head of the department of epidemiology with the Kavadarci Health Institute, informs that there was one case of brucellosis in February, in March - 4 people had the disease, in May - 5, and by June 6th, 6 more cases were registered.
Matthew Nemitz is going to spend his summer holidays on the Greek islands. The former U. S. president George Bush is going on a cruise on the Aegean Sea, on the yacht of a rich Greek businessman. The UN Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali is going to receive "Onasis" reward of $1 million. These news, whether we like it or not, impose a number of dilemmas on whether the Greek lobby "is buying" the negotiations with Macedonia. After these lobbyist announcements, it is impossible to count on an objectivity of the main negotiators. It has been finally revealed that the United States are not willing to finalize the matters (concerning the dispute). It has also become clear why, after more than a year since the "freezing" of diplomatic relations, it does not want to make a step toward full normalization. We can forget about Bush's visit, whose role is to serve as an agent for the promotion of the Greek interests in the construction of oil pipelines from Russia (it affects Macedonia, but it is normal, because such "deals" are understandable for policy and business), but Nemitz's holidays, at a time when the negotiations have been on a "dead point" for two years, gives reasons for suspicions, speculations, and even frustrations, because the least that we can expect of a negotiator is to be impartial and to hold negotiations instead of going on holidays.
Why did Nemitz choose Greece for his holidays out of 180 other states, and being an experienced diplomat, he knows that since he is involved, his holidays can easily become a subject of speculations about whether he is going to pay for his holidays himself, or whether it is going to be done by the generous Greek government. It is now becoming obvious that Nemitz's further role in the negotiations will unveil the whole truth. U.S. sources in Skopje claim that they do not know anything about the nature of his visit, while the U.S. Embassy in Athens gives Nemitz's visit a private treatment, that in unofficial, stating that they are not familiar with any details. What makes the whole case even more overweight than it probably deserves to be, is the knowledge that the money of the big Greek lobby has been involved in the U.S. policy and that under the influence of the interests of these groups the negotiations will be carried out the way they are being carried out now -- with incertitude, permanent postponements, concessions to the Greek requests, understanding for their emotions toward history, and so on. On this principle of donations is actually built every successful career in the United States, and now that the presidential campaign has started, every partiality is of a value. Although Nemitz is not actively involved in policy and although he is not paid by the U.S. Administration for his mediating services, since the time of his inclusion in the Carter's political team he has undoubtedly been aware of the subtlety of his role, and moreover, of its subjectiveness to influences and pressures. He should be aware of Macedonia's sensibility, as a country that has been suffering for over a year from the blockade on the border on the one side and in all the international organizations where it absolutely needs to become a member, particularly when someone who has to be trusted as a mediator with good will, goes on holidays in Greece, while he has never found the time to visit Macedonia in the past six months. There is also a lot of Greek policy in the fact that while Nemitz is going to spend his holidays in Greece, UN Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali is going to receive a reward of $1 million for special services in solving the problems that are burdening the Mediterranean (that is the unsolved Macedonian, the unsolved Cypriot, and the unsolved Greek-Turkish question). At the same time, Bush is lobbying for redirecting the path of the oil pipeline across Greece -- and thus leave Macedonia dependent on the energy supply from its southern neighbor. Apparently, it is either a diplomatic error of Clinton's mediator, or perhaps there is no interest in solving the question of negotiations between the two countries, which is an argument for the previous claims of Greek sources that the appointment of Nemitz is nothing but a camouflage for keeping the question opened. It is not necessary to mention how much the Greek Government and the lobbyists are willing to pay for this, knowing that hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars are paid for bribing Greek journalists, for propaganda in foreign newspapers, and for the campaigns of various congressmen -- let us not mention Ghali and his million.
The British firm "Trein" has ranked Macedonia 11th among the 27 countries in transition. According to this British firm, Macedonia is in the group of "small wonders" that "made encouraging progress."
The assessment is based on the results achieved in the first three months of the year, in the segments of: achieved macro-economic results, tendency to implement reforms, stability, foreign investments and general business climate. According to their opinion, the economic situation in Macedonia is starting to show a tendency of further improvement.
An EBRD team is staying in Skopje these days, which, on the basis of a previously prepared study on the application of natural gas in the general consumption of Skopje (50,000 households), expressed an interest in a more detailed elaboration on this project. The French experts will draw up these projects by the end of the year, while, beside the EBRD, the World bank also showed an interest in financing the city network.
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