"Macedonia meets all the criteria and standards to become a full member of Europe and I hope this will happen in the very near future," said Miguel Martinez, President of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, while addressing members of the Macedonian Parliament at yesterday's 20th session. "There is no doubt," he said, "that Europe is advancing with huge steps and many countries and nations, previously left out, have requested to join the Union. "
"These are nations, like yours or mine a decade ago, believing that to be a European is not only mere rhetoric, but a means to live in peace, freedom and prosperity. Macedonia has always been on the map of Europe and has played a significant role in many chapters of history. We in the Council of Europe are aware of and concerned with the tensions and conflicts in your relations with certain neighbors. The controversy between Greece and your country caused us a great deal of concern and embarrassment, but your membership to the Council, to become a reality soon, will enable you to meet with both the Greeks and Bulgarians," he said. Martinez also spoke of the role and main tasks of the Council in the new European reality. Yet, he said, to enter Europe requires fulfillment of certain conditions, such as freedom, democracy, pluralism, respect for the rule of law and human rights, including the rights of minorities. He underlined the right of any minority to be respected and protected by the state; on the other hand, he also pointed out that the state has the right to demand unreserved and undivided loyalty from all national minorities living on its territory. In the afternoon, Martinez was received by President Gligorov. They agreed the visit is of considerable importance for the overall stability in the entire region.
Martinez also met with Prime Minister Crvenkovski to point out that Macedonia is a rare example of a country which pays so much attention to the regulation of ethnic relations. Martinez later met with members of the parliamentary Committee on Foreign Policy, with representatives of the Youth Council and visited the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Science.
Macedonian Foreign Minister Stevo Crvenkovski met yesterday in Tokyo with the president of the Managing Board of Japan's Fund for International Economic Cooperation, to explore possibilities for Macedonia to make use of credits from the Fund under favorable terms. Crvenkovski also met with the vice-president of the Japanese Agency for International Technical Cooperation. Stating satisfaction with the cooperation so far, they expressed hope for further inclusion of Macedonia in the Agency's projects. At the end, Crvenkovski met representatives of the Japanese-Macedonian Committee for Economic Cooperation.
Citing the Greek opposition daily Elefetheros Tipos, Makfaks says the US mediator in the Greek-Macedonian dispute, Matthew Nimitz, will visit Athens and Skopje on June 14-15. According to the paper, US diplomacy has decided to close the Skopje issue by introducing the so- called small package. The aim of Nimitz's visit is reportedly to secure an atmosphere for renewal of the Greek-Macedonian talks in New York, to start at the end of this or the beginning of next month. The success of the mission, however, is uncertain as President Gligorov refuses to sit at the negotiating table unless the embargo is lifted, the paper claims. In another article, the same paper writes that Macedonian representatives are looking for a location for a diplomatic office in Athens. Therefore, the paper concludes, the trade blockade is to be lifted shortly and Greece will recognize Macedonia. Meantime, as reported by the conservative paper Katimerini, a report on the recent talks of Serbian President Miloshevic with Greek Foreign Minister Papoulias and Defense Minister Arsenis (the latter two recently visited Pale, Bosnian Serbs stronghold near Sarajevo), focused more on the Skopje issue than on the crisis in Bosnia. The report, published by the paper, says Greece and Serbia agreed to a need for normalized Belgrade-Skopje-Athens relations as soon as possible, pointing out the importance of such relations to stability in the Balkans.
Miltiades Evert, leader of the Greek opposition party New Democracy, will arrive in Sofia today. He is expected to suggest an agreement on inviolability of borders, to be signed by all Balkan states. A1 Television cites a New Democracy official as saying the Bulgarian leadership estimated the suggestion positively.
An OSCE Economic Forum, in which a Macedonian delegation led by Foreign Ministry Under Secretary Dimitar Belcev is taking part, was opened in Prague yesterday. The Forum will be analyzing successful examples among OSCE country members and countries with a special status in bilateral relations and regional cooperation. The Macedonian delegation will present the current situation in the country.
Macedonian ambassador to Sweden Tihomir Ilievski met the Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Karlson in Stockholm, for talks on improving Macedonian-Swedish economic relations.
The newly appointed Turkish ambassador to Macedonia, Unal Marasli, handed over credentials to Victor Gaber, Under Secretary in the Macedonian Foreign Ministry.
A delegation of the Islamic Organization Conference, led by Assistant Secretary General Mohamed Mohsen, is currently on a several day visit to Macedonia. They met yesterday with Foreign Under Secretary Victor Gaber, Interior Ministry Under Secretaries Slobodan Bogoevski and Dime Djurev, and Macedonian Red Cross Secretary Ivan Narashanov.
At yesterday's 20th session, Macedonian MP's voted 63 in favor and 10 against the Military Academy Act. The academy is to start working this fall to strengthen the country's defense strategy. Defense Minister Blagoj Handziski said that the academy training, which will yield new qualified army officers, will cost nearly six times less than to pay for training abroad. Officer candidates for the rank of general will be educated in countries with which Macedonia has established bilateral military relations and cooperation. Certain MP's said minorities are under-represented in the military structures and should be granted special quotas. Parliament members also passed proposed changes in the same law, introduced to coordinate the law with the recently adopted Criminal Law. The Law on Transplantation of Parts of the Human Body was another law adopted by MP's yesterday. The law states that parts of the body can be taken from a patient only after a brain death has been confirmed, while no parts can be taken from a patient still living without approval of the patient himself. The donation of body parts is a voluntary act and donors will receive no compensation.
Parliament also passed a Law on Aiding Earthquake-Struck Areas, such as Bitola, Ohrid, Resen and Demir Hisar. All Macedonian citizens will participate in the aid; employees will donate two daily wages, pensioners two daily amounts from pensions, and farmers 0.2 per cent of their annual income.
The proposed Law on Obtaining a Credit from the International Development Agency, needed for the realization of the social reform and technical aid project, aroused a bitter debate. MP's mainly objected to ways in which the $14 million credit - to be gained under extremely favorable terms - is to be distributed. Deputies insisted on a report by the government on how the funds will be spent, and some MP's said it might be better for Macedonia to obtain credits with higher interest than to keep increasing its debt to foreign countries. Yet the law was passed with 64 votes in favor. Without a debate, MP's also voted in favor of a law on an additional $85 million credit from the same institution and under the same favorable terms, to be used in a project of supporting the country's financial sector.
A group of PDP deputies submitted to Parliament yesterday a request for an interpolation of the Macedonian Television Director General Melpomeni Korneti. The reason stated, A1 Television reports, was the director's failure to fulfill promises to reform the television house. The promise to appoint an ethnic Albanian to the position of deputy director was not fulfilled, they said, just as the television did not expand the Albanian language program, despite credits approved for this aim. In the end they pointed out that Mrs. Korneti has ordered the appointment of a producer for the Albanian-language program, despite protests of all employees in the Albanian department. The request will be discussed at the next parliament session.
Authorities in Albania will no longer request identification documents from Albanians living outside their home country. Identification from the country of their residence will be sufficient in future. Albanians from Macedonia will prove their identity by a Macedonian passport and will be granted entry visas to Albania free of charge.
The public electricity company decided to raise the price of electricity by 15 per cent, commencing from May 1 for households and June 9 for industrial consumers. The increase will be valid retrospectively from January 31, this year, due to the fact that the Constitutional Court annulled all price increases in the meantime. The price increase will be calculated over the so-called winter period (February 1 - April 15) as well as the summer period, which starts on April 18.
This means that consumers ought to be compensated for the difference between bills already paid and the new price for the entire period between February 1 and May 1. The total debt of the electricity company toward citizens amounts to $800,000.
As of 3 p.m. yesterday, the Macedonian air companies "Pallair" and "MAT" have been grounded because of unsettled debts toward the state and the public airport enterprise Makedonija. A1 Television cites unofficial sources as saying that "Pallair" owes some DM 3 million while "MAT" owes DM 1.5 million. All flights of the two companies will be forbidden until they settle at least 40 per cent of their debts.
Date: Wed, 31 May 1995 From: Steven Carlson
Dear Ljupco - I've been planning a trip to Skopje, and it will probably be in the next few months. Meanwhile we've been out of contact, so I thought I'd say hello.
I saw a film tonight that you most certainly know. I saw "Before the Rain" - a Macedonian film directed by Milko Manchevsky. It was a powerful film, and all night I've been thinking about Macedonia and how things must have changed there.
I've been living in Budapest since November 1988. In all this time I haven't visited Skopje. To be fair, I haven't traveled much elsewhere either. But it seems strange that I've been away so long. My last visit was in 1987 before I returned to the US to finish my degree at Chico. I traveled that Summer and Fall in West and East Europe, and then unpacked my bags in Hungary. In the time since then I've started a family, and founded a newspaper, the "Budapest Week". I've been busy. But Macedonia isn't so far away, and I've several times considered visiting. I still don't know why, but I haven't.
Of course there is the war. I remember even in 1986 how people in Skopje joked about the coming conflict in Yugoslavia. It seemed certain even then. As I write this the UN and NATO are acting out their final showdown with the Bosnian Serbs. We know who will win. We know who is willing to make a stand and die.
"Before the Rain" makes the same point. And I've seen the same pattern in your MILS news reports. A cycle of violence has started in Macedonia, and that cycle is as old as the Vardar River that runs through Skopje. The film's protagonist, Alexander, is an imigri Macedonian photographer who returns to his family village after 16 years in exile in London, only to discover that he too, must take sides.
One of the most powerful moments in the film - for me - was a brief tour of Skopje. The city was familiar but I was shocked to see white UN tanks on the streets. However most of the film takes place in the countryside by what looked like the Sveti Naum monastery at Ohrid. Those hills reminded me most of your weekend cottage in the hills outside of Skopje - of you and your family: Magda, Marija and Dimitar.
I know very little about life in the villages, since I lived most of my time in Skopje. My contact to Macedonia is you and a few other friends who still remember me. And when I think about the possibility of conflict there I think of you, and hope you are okay.
The rain is coming, isn't it? On hot nights like tonight in Budapest, the long, hot, humid day has built up into a lingering tension. Couples shout at each other on the street. Office workers loosen their ties and decide to leave early. People waiting at a bus stop scan the darkening sky. The tension reaches a climax and then the clouds break, bursting forth rain. Thunder claps and lightening forks out above the city skyline. And then the storm passes and the night is cool and lovely.
But we're not talking about thunderstorms. We're talking about people with machine guns and ancient hatreds. And a simple bloodletting won't do. Just over the horizon you have the Serbs and the Greeks, the Albanians and possibly even the Bulgarians and Romanians. I can hear CNN in the next room. The British Prime Minister is talking in Parliament about his intention to reinforce the British troops in Bosnia. A commentator notes the number of UN hostages is now 400. He hopes a diplomatic breakthrough with Milosevich will isolate the Bosnian Serbs and force a settlement to the crisis.
I hope the West finds some solution. They'd better. What's happening this weeks in Bosnia will determine the next ten years in the rest of the Balkans. Fingers crossed, Steve Carlson