Yesterday afternoon, at UN headquarters in Geneva, Foreign Minister Stevo Crvenkovski had a meeting with UN Secretary-General Boutros Ghali.
Participating in the meeting were also Cyrus Vance and the permanent representative of the Republic of Macedonia Goce Petreski. The talks revolved around the situation in the region and the relations with the neighboring countries. An emphasis was placed on Cyrus Vance's mediation and the support of his efforts to find a way to continue the talks between Macedonia and Greece.
The Assistant UN Secretary-General for political issues Alvaro de Sotto met with President Gligorov yesterday, as part of his two-day visit to Macedonia, AFP reports. According to this agency, in the talks, President Gligorov underlined the losses suffered by Macedonia as a result of the sanctions against FR Yugoslavia and stressed that the UN must help Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria and Greece financially, which are suffering because of the sanctions. He added that the sanctions were creating crisis regions in the Balkans.
Alvaro de Sotto also met with representatives from the Foreign Ministry, and spoke with representatives of the oppositional parties yesterday.
Yesterday afternoon, De Sotto left for Belgrade, where he is due to meet with the President of Serbia Slobodan Milosevich. De Sotto came to Macedonia following his visit to Zagreb and Sarajevo, as part of the peace operations on the regions of former Yugoslavia.
"In spite of the important legislative activities and the implementation of the stabilization program, there is still no room for some kind of self-confidence and satisfaction with the situation in the Republic of Macedonia," President Gligorov assessed in the interview for today's issue of "Puls."
To the question whether there are any comments about the current relations between the parties in the Alliance for Macedonia, with which he shared his program orientations, President Gligorov emphasized that the coalition took over the responsibility to implement the presented platform before the voters, and that is its priority task. "By bringing into question the authority of the Alliance or certain parties, everyone can only lose," Gligorov said.
Speaking of the dispute with Athens, President Gligorov said he was not an absolute optimist, in view of experiences so far with the negotiations. "Still, there is hope that is based not only on the Macedonian constructive stance, but also certain movements in the position of the Greek side, and even the international community," Gligorov concluded.
"The Albanians in Macedonia have a much clearer vision now about their rights," the leader of the Kosovo Albanians Ibrahim Rugova said in the interview for the newspaper "Rilindija," which comes out in Tirana.
Rugova, as president of the Coordinative committee of the parties of the Albanians in the regions of former Yugoslavia, assessed that the crisis in PDP, as the biggest party of the Albanians in Macedonia, was overcome. With regard to this, Ibrahim Rugova said that all the stances surrounding the realization of the requests of the Albanians in Macedonia were now clear. Indirectly, he welcomed the "return" of the MPs of the Albanian parties in Parliament, pointing out that the participation in the Government and in Parliament is a part of the democratic procedure.
The American billionaire and financier of the organization "Open Society," George Soros, which is active in Macedonia, told the Greek news agency that his relations with Macedonia and President Gligorov are "greatly disrupted," Makfaks reports.
In explaining why the relations with the Macedonian President have deteriorated, Soros, according to the Athens agency, stated that "Mr. Gligorov does not respect the educational rights of the Albanians in Macedonia. I criticized President Gligorov because of that, and he did not like that."
George Soros also said that he was prepared to mediate in the dispute between Greece and Macedonia, however, he did not believe he would be asked to do that.
On the occasion of this information, which was published by the newspaper "Vecer" today, and the "Macedonian Radio" yesterday, the executive director of the Macedonian Institute "Open Society" Vladimir Milchin asked George Soros to personally comment this.
The response, which was sent to the media by fax, with a request to be published in the interest of objective information, says: "The quotes that are reportedly said to be mine are incorrect and misleading."
According to information of the Macedonian Interior Ministry, 1,643,466 adult citizens reside on the territory of the Republic of Macedonia. From the day the law came into effect, a total of 1,500,178 adult citizens in the country or 91.28% regulated their citizenship status. This shows that the remainder, or 143,288 persons have not regulated their citizenship status, although they possess old documents (I.D. cards) issued in Macedonia.
This figure does not include persons staying in the country illegally or who are treated as foreigners.
At the meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, which was also attended by Prime Minister Crvenkovski, the private business owners asked the state to calculate the personal income tax and all other taxes on the same basis, with payment deadlines that apply to the whole economy, and to write off the unpaid obligations to the 1994 budget. They also asked for a reduction of the penal interest and, in order to prevent the disappearance of certain crafts, they asked for personal income tax exemption in this sphere. Requests were also made in relation to the adoption of educational plans for certain crafts and greater mobility of the inspection services, in order to reduce the grey economy. Protests were also made against the 100% increase in the rents for business areas.
Prime Minister Crvenkovski said that the taxes, regardless of whether they are high or low, must be paid, while the penal interest rates are high in order to prevent tax evasion. As for writing off the taxes from last year, he said that this was impossible as it would be unfair to all those who have already paid their taxes. The Prime Minister added that it was the perfect moment for intensification in the sphere of education, and to get a precise picture of the deficit crafts, where particular attentions must be paid to prevent misuse. The increase in the rents was explained with the intention to sell these business areas, due to which the sale prices have also been reduced.
The final criteria for the assessment of the offers in the process of privatization should be worked out by Tuesday, which is when the session of the Managing board of the Privatization Agency will take place. Three criteria have been noted as basic: price, development strategy and assessment of the bidder. The criteria will not be strictly precised, but each one will have an upper and lower limit which can not be crossed. These criteria will be precised for every enterprise separately.
According to the last sketches, a margin of 25-40 points was determined for the offered price; for the criterion development strategy, which incorporates the criterion for investments, employment, financial performance, etc, 50-75 points are received, and as part of this criterion, the most points are received for employment - from 15 to 30 points. The third criterion - assessment of the bidder, carries 5 points.
The capacities of the 7 factories for cellulose and paper in Macedonia functioned with only 34% of their capacities last year, and in the first 6 months of this year, with 33%. This was said at the meeting of the Group for the production of paper and cellulose within the Macedonian Chamber of Commerce, with representatives from the Customs administration.
The producers protested over the excessive imports of nylon bags, and expressed a couple of requests: to liberate from taxation all the basic raw materials and intermediate goods that are produced in Macedonia, to increase the customs rates on the import of finished products that are produced in Macedonia and upon the issue of certificates for the customs exemption of intermediate goods for the publishing industry, that the competent ministry asks the producers for an opinion that those intermediate goods are really not produced in Macedonia.
The slaughter of cattle was 38% less last year than in 1990. With the sheep, the decline is 26%, and with the pigs 18%. The decline in this industry is even more evident in view of the indicators over a period of 10 years, where there is a conspicuous drop of 64% with the cattle, 59% with the sheep and 49.2% with the pigs.
At this meeting, it was said that this decline is owed to the reduction in the Republic's cattle fund, the blocked exports to traditional markets in Italy and Greece, the difficult transport conditions caused by the blockade on FRY and the disloyal competition of imported meat and processings. The ban on the import of young beef to the EU countries was also mentioned.
As for the last export of lamb's meat to Italy, it was said that negative financial results from 30 - 35% were noticed due to the 20% drop of the Italian lira.