SKOPJE, SEPTEMBER 25,1995 (MIC)
The European Commission will be asking Greece for an official confirmation of the lifting of the embargo against Macedonia. The Athens radio station SKY reported this from Brussels on Friday. The radio announced that the European Commission was getting ready to increase the bulk of its funding of Skopje, and to sign an agreement with Macedonia on economic and trade cooperation.
These requests for guarantees from Athens are linked with the trail against Greece in the European Court of Justice. The Athens media are announcing these days that following the signing of the New York agreement, the proceedings in the European Court of Justice will also be stopped.
Greek Foreign Minister Karolos Papoulias asked the European Court of Justice yesterday to make a definite decision about the legitimacy of the economic embargo, imposed on Macedonia one and a half year ago. Greece is insisting on a final decision from the European Court, even though this measure will be abolished after the recent signing of the interim accord between Macedonia and Greece in New York.
"Greece can no longer be compromised as a country violating the laws of the European Union, and it must be convicted or released," the Greek Foreign Minister Karolos Papoulias said. "The European Commission has to finish what it started," he insisted.
A delegation of Greek businessmen, interested in investing in Macedonia and cooperation with Macedonian partners, was received last week by the president of the Macedonian Chamber of Commerce Dushan Petreski.
The businessmen are mainly from Salonika, Lerin, Voden and other places in the area. Most outspoken among them was the director of the Salonika Chamber of Commerce Gudulakis. He stressed that the opening of the border also meant cutting further losses.
The Salonika port will stand to gain the most with the unblocking of the Greek border, where the annual losses amount to over US$ 90 million. The numerous industrialists from northern Greece also stand to gain a lot, seeing they realized US$ 193 million from the exchange with Macedonia in 1993.
A delegation of the Polish Foreign Ministry, led by Deputy Minister Stephan Meller has been staying in Macedonia since Thursday. The Deputy Minister was received by Prime Minister Crvenkovski and Foreign Minister Stevo Crvenkovski.
Macedonia and Poland agreed to sign the agreements on the protection of investments and avoiding double taxation during the meeting of the Central European Initiative in Warsaw on October 6 and 7. In effect, this will start off a series of bilateral agreements on economy, science, culture, traffic, etc.
The fall session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which is expected to see the accession of Macedonia and Ukraine as full members, is scheduled to start in Strasbourg today.
According to the daily agenda, Ukraine's application will be reviewed tomorrow morning, while Macedonia will be discussed on Wednesday afternoon.
At the invitation of the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Stojan Andov left for Strasbourg to take part in the work of the Assembly and to hold a speech on September 27. The permanent Macedonian delegation will also take part in the work of the Assembly.
The International Helsinki Human Rights Federation appointed the presidents of the Macedonian and Greek Helsinki Committee, Meto Jovanovski and Panajotis Dimitras as its observers in the latest hearing in the trial of the Greek citizen of Macedonian origins Hristos Sideropoulos on August 26 in Lerin. Through the Greek Helsinki Committee, a number of Macedonian journalists asked for credentials to follow the trial in Lerin.
The official Greek response to these requests, through the Greek Foreign Ministry and the Greek embassy in Vienna was that "the trial of a Greek citizen is in question, and therefore, there is no need for the presence of foreign citizens."
Hristos Sideropoulos has been faced with charges ever since the CSCE Conference in Copenhagen, where he promoted the rights of the Macedonian national minority in Greece. The official Greek explanation is that the trial was initiated after the pressing of private charges.
"I belong to the category of people who have been deprived of their rights, even the right to a name. I am a Macedonian and I live in Greek Macedonia, but I don't even have the right to state that, nor to speak in my mother tongue, or to even practice the customs of my ancestors, and all with the purpose of taking them away from our descendants. Regardless of the break up of the Macedonian people in 1913, they have kept their culture, identity and unity! Precisely for that reason, 50 years ago, the Macedonian population became a political refugee or migrated. Even now, when they want to visit their relatives, they are forbidden to do so!" This is a part of Sideropoulos' address in Copenhagen.
Over two hundred Macedonians and Serbs, inhabitants of Ognjanci and the surrounding villages held a protest meeting on Friday evening in the yard of the elementary school in the village Petrovec, against the decision of the Ministry of Education to open up three classes in Albanian language in the school in their village, and demanding that the decision be revoked.
This meeting was organized by the Committee for the protection of the Macedonian language and the Macedonian cultural space, presided over by Steren Paunovich. Otherwise, the Macedonian and Serbian children from this area have been boycotting school classes in protest against this decision of the Education Ministry, for the past eight days.
The representative of the Serbs Boshko Despotovich in the Committee for inter-ethnic relations of Macedonia has resigned. He explained his decision with the fact that the constitutional position of the Serbs in Macedonia has not been regulated. Namely, according to their opinion, this question has been left open for more than one year, whereby the Serbs are still not incorporated even in the preamble to the Macedonian Constitution.
President Andov insisted that Despotovich' resignation be left in a state of rest, seeing this organ is not competent to change the Constitution, saying that such a proposal should come from the competent organs.