MAK-NEWS 13/07/95 (M.I.L.S.)

From: "Demetrios E. Paneras" <dep@bu.edu>

Macedonian Information Liaison Service Directory

CONTENTS

M I L S N E W S

Skopje, 13 July 1995

[01] DEMIREL ARRIVING IN MACEDONIA TODAY

Turkish President Suleiman Demirel will arrive in an official visit to Macedonia today. He will meet his Macedonian counterpart Kiro Gligorov and give a speech at the Macedonian Parliament.

The two presidents are expected to sign several agreements to regulate issues concerning friendship, cooperation and neighborly relations, investment protection, as well as to form a joint commission for economic cooperation and a business council for cooperation between chambers of commerce. They will also confer on the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Treaty, to which Macedonia is denied membership due to a veto imposed by Greece.

The Turkish president will be accompanied by a delegation headed by Foreign Minister Erdal Ineni, who will meet with his counterpart Stevo Crvenkovski. The delegation also includes a group of Turkish businessmen and representatives of the Chamber of Commerce and humanitarian organizations.

Demirel will arrive to Macedonia from Tirana, where he discussed bilateral issues and the Balkan situation with Albanian President Sali Berisa.

[02] FORHEUGEN'S ACTIVITIES IN MACEDONIA

Gunter Forheugen, Secretary General of the German Social Democratic Party, met yesterday in Skopje with President Gligorov, Parliament President Andov, Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski and Foreign Minister Stevo Crvenkovski. They discussed the current political and economic cooperation between Germany and Macedonia.

Forheugen later met with representatives of UNPREDEP, OSCE and the Macedonian Social Democratic Party.

At a press-conference later in the day, Forheugen pointed out that his party supports Macedonia's political goals and its attempts to be included into international organizations such as the Council of Europe, OSCE and the Partnership for Peace project. Macedonia needs to cooperate with the European Union as much as possible, he said, as its potential EU membership would greatly contribute to securing economic and social security. The Greek blockade, he said, is unjust and wrong, adding that his party has been trying to persuade the Greeks to openly deal with all problems with Macedonia. Forheugen suggested an agreement between Greece and Macedonia, resembling the German-Polish recent one, safe-guarding inviolability of borders and rights of minorities.

The German Social Democratic Party, he concluded, stands against attempts to destabilize Macedonia and, therefore, positively evaluates the role of UNPREDEP.

[03] MACEDONIAN-ALBANIAN COOPERATION GAINING IN INTENSITY

The Albanian parliamentary delegation currently visiting Macedonia yesterday met with several Macedonian ministers and representatives of political parties included in the work of parliament. Talks with Foreign Minister Stevo Crvenkovski pointed out to a need for several bilateral agreements to regulate aspects of mutual relations, such as demarcation of border lines and dealing with border incidents; traffic in border zones; legal aid for citizens; and educational and culture issues.

Albanian MP's met with Education Minister Emilija Simovska, to state a need for a soon meeting between the two countries' ministers of education, to overcome existing problems and intensify the cooperation on a basis of reciprocity in education and a protocol on court verification of higher education degrees. Simovska informed on the achieved degree of implementation of minority rights in the field of education.

The Albanian delegation met with Minister of Traffic and Communication Dimitar Buzlevski, to discuss the East-West corridor and a Trans Balkan telephone line. Buzlevski underlined a need to protect the Macedonian ether and comply the work of radio and TV stations with technical and other legal criteria.

In a statement for the Macedonian press, Head of the delegation Eduard Seljami said he expected the agreements to be signed in the nearest future, pointing out to disagreements on educational issues (according to him, an Albanian-language university is an essential stability factor for Macedonia). Yet, he said, this problem will also be resolved, although it will perhaps take a longer time.

[04] MACEDONIA SEEKS UN AID IN CRIME PREVENTION

Macedonian Minister of the Interior Frckovski met with Mr. Sokalski, Chief of the UNPREDEP Mission in Macedonia, to discuss possibilities of a UN assistance of Macedonia's projects on crime prevention.

[05] DECISION ON PASSPORT REGIME BROUGHT BY MACEDONIA, AFTER ALL

The Yugoslav government issued an official statement to say it has brought no decision to introduce a passport regime on its border with Macedonia, explaining that the confusion is a result of an announcement by the Macedonian Ministry of the Interior.

The Macedonian ministry says it had issued such an order upon an oral information of the authorities in Yugoslavia.

The final comment of the Macedonian ministry is that the Macedonian border with Yugoslavia can be crossed only by presenting valid passports, starting from July 5.

[06] GOVERNMENT BARGAINS WITH NATIONAL INTERESTS, DEMOCRATS SAY

The Democratic Party of Macedonia yesterday held a press- conference to accuse the Government of continuing to bargain with national interests to achieve narrow-minded party goals, by its recent decision to release the convicted ethnic Albanian 'parasoldiers'. This, Democrats said, only shows that the process had been fabricated, as the entire matter has turned into a political farce.

Party leader Petar Gosev said the Government also degraded the Macedonian judiciary when it influenced the court decision in the case of the 'Hard Rock" discotheque, thus confirming its links with the Skopje underground.

[07] TURKEY SENDS HUMANITARIAN AID TO MACEDONIA

As part of the international humanitarian aid, the Macedonian Red Cross received yesterday a humanitarian package by the Turkish Red Crescent, consisted of medicine and 35 tons of foodstuff, to be delivered among the most impoverished citizens.

MILS SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT:

[08] NEW CRITERIA TO CALM DOWN PASSIONS

(Vecer, 13 July 1995) The session of the Privatization Agency's Board of Managers of two days ago dealt away with two very important segments - the two instances with which complaints are to be submitted and the criteria for valuing management buy-out and additional investment privatization models. In this way, the privatization process has made a come back into the sphere of economy, although political penetrations are an option always to be counted on.

'Tenders whose offers have been turned down have the right to complain... with the company's board of shareholders and with the authorized courts, within 15 days following the notification on an accepted offer for additional investment.' This provision (referring to the additional investment model) is part of the new Instructions on the implementation of privatization models in compliance with the law. In case of the other privatization models, complaints are to be submitted with the Privatization Agency's Board, instead of with the board of shareholders of the company in question.

The joke, however, is that the such presented right to a complaint leaves no room for further speculations with having the government's Privatization Commission established as a second-instance institution to submit complaints to (with the Agency's Board remaining a first instance one), with an open possibility to proceed further to court instances. In fact, should the outcome be such, the relations between the Commission and the Agency would 'guarantee' a complete subordinate position for the Agency; the Commission, being a second-instance institution, would delegate certain rights of its own to the Agency, but would retain the right to a permanent control - as if the Agency 'consumed' the delegated rights. This would then be a pure politicization of the privatization process.

As it is now, the Commission can only intervene by amendments on the draft-decision to introduce new evaluation criteria (the decision, by the way, was passed by the Agency's Board two days ago, along with the above mentioned Instructions). The draft-decision and the Instructions are already included in the agenda of next Monday's cabinet session. In this way, says the president of the Agency's Board Dr. Taki Fiti, the suggested (and passed) decision and Instructions are to obtain an appropriate political weight.

A final polish by the Agency's Board is to include three global criteria for the evaluation of tenders on managerial buy-out and additional investment models. The criteria 'price' is assigned 20 to 45 evaluation points, development strategy can bring 50 to 75 points and the Agency's right to a discrete judgment carries modest 5 points. The development strategy criteria is subclassified into 'investments' (bringing 15 to 25 points), 'employment' (15 to 30 points), 'expected market and financial performances' (10 to 15 points), and 'offer evaluation' (5 to 10 points).

In case a tender offers a maximum price exceeding the appraised value by two thirds, the 'price' criteria is to be strengthened by additional 10 points. If a tender offers a price double the appraised value of the company on sale, this category is given additional 20 points. As for the criteria 'employment', stimulations go thus: additional 5 points for maintaining the already existing employment level or increasing it by a third; additional 10 points for a two-thirds increase of the number of employees; and additional powerful 15 points in case the new owner should double the number of employees. Offers planning to reduce the number of employees will, on the other hand, receive negative points: 5 negative points for a planned employment reduction of up to 10 per cent; 10 negative points for laying off up to 20 per cent of workers; 15 negatives points for a 30 per cent reduction, minus 20 points for a 40 per cent lay-off, 25 points for cuts up to 50 per cent; and, finally, 30 negative points for an offer including job cuts of over 50 per cent of the total number of employees in the company to be privatized.

Dr. Fiti assures such flexibly determined criteria will be implemented in a maximum precise manner in each privatization procedure, depending on the different nature of each company to be transformed.

And, finally, the Instructions sets penalty points for failure to fulfill undertaken obligations by companies in accordance with the concluded privatization agreements (the managerial buy-out model will be especially subjected to this). Thus, every failure to carry out an investment will result in a penalty of as much as 10 per cent of the value of the investment project, while the penalty for not employing an individual will amount to gross year's wages of an employee. This is all to additionally safe-guard the concluded agreements, along with the mortgage provided by the managerial team and exceeding the value of capital to be privatized by 30 per cent.

(end)

mils-news 13 July '95