Tag: Macedonia

As Washington weighs a military strike against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, the human fallout of two and a half years of conflict that has sent millions into flight is no longer contained to the Middle East. Hundreds of refugees are trying to get into Europe from the Western Balkans.

To prevent a change of power resulting from economic misery, Albania's lame-duck Prime Minister Sali Berisha placed his bet on nationalist tactics for parliamentary elections. However, the new Socialist majority could not afford to reject unification ambitions for tactical reasons either, writes Dušan Reljić.

The European Parliament's rapporteur on Macedonia said it was better to postpone a decision to start accession negotiations with Macedonia than risk disappointing the country again and seeing it “walk away” from its EU path.

In the wake of a Commission report on Macedonia that underlines the country's "good" relations with its neighbours, the Foreign Ministry removed information from its website that was seen as irredentist by Bulgaria and Greece.

Greece's ongoing objections to Macedonia's membership in NATO demonstrates that unlimited veto power threatens to make the alliance less responsive, restrictively bureaucratic, and subject to the mercy of any internal disagreement, no matter how small, writes Sally A. Painter.

Macedonia held a trouble-free municipal election yesterday (24 March) despite recent ethnic and political unrest, in a boost for the Balkan country's hopes to start European Union entry talks later this year.

One week after warning that Macedonia's Euro-Atlantic path was “threatened”, Enlargement Commissioner Štefan Füle is in Skopje today (1 March), in an effort to defuse tensions between the government and the opposition that have been growing since last December.

Macedonia's leading opposition party has accused the European Union of overlooking threats to democracy in the country, as anti-government protests continued yesterday (3 January) for the 11th day. 

Skopje has made a promising opening to Greece by reacting favourably to a proposal aimed at resolving the long-standing name dispute between the countries.

In its yearly status report on the progress EU hopefuls are making towards membership, the European Commission has good news for Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo. The report - published today (10 October) - also calls for a resumption of negotiations with EU candidate Turkey that are stalled because of the long-running territorial dispute with Cyprus.

Macedonia may face early elections after an ethnic Albanian party that is part of the governing coalition threatened to quit in protest of a draft law on the rights of Macedonian soldiers and their families that was put before parliament.

Even in times of crisis, nine European countries strive to join the EU. It would be an “enormous mistake” if the Union would lose interest in expansion, Štefan Füle told EurActiv Czech Republic in an exclusive interview.

Ethnic Albanians rallied in several Macedonian towns on Friday (11 May) to protest against a police operation that saw suspects arrested in the deaths of five people. The regional press saw the protests as a sign of rising radical Islam in the country.

Police in Macedonia arrested 20 people yesterday (1 May), including radical Islamists who reportedly fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan, for the murder of five men at a lake near the capital Skopje in mid-April.

The European Parliament adopted yesterday (14 March) resolutions on three countries, representing extremes in terms of their EU accession process: Iceland, which moves on a fast track; Macedonia, the accession talks of which are blocked for a seventh year due to a conflict with Greece; and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the reform process is stalled.

Greek and Macedonian leaders are to meet on the sidelines of next week's EU summit amid few indications that they will make in headway in the dispute over national identity that has prevented Macedonia from starting accession talks since becoming an EU candidate seven years ago. 

The International Court of Justice has ruled today (5 December) that by blocking Macedonia's NATO bid in April 2008, Greece has breached a bilateral agreement signed between the two countries in 1995.

Bulgarian MEPs outraged over a Macedonian film that depicts wartime Bulgarians as fascists are calling on Enlargement Commissioner Štefan Füle to confront Skopje over the forthcoming movie.

Tanja Milevska argues Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, despite a recent electoral victory, is in an insecure position due to the EU's negative assessment of the country's candidacy prospects and mass protests following the police's murder of a youth.

A statue of a 'warrior on horseback' resembling Alexander the Great, currently being erected in the centre of Macedonian capital Skopje, has sparked fury in Greece, which warned that Skopje was gambling with its EU membership aspirations with such provocations.

Macedonia's Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and his inner circle are making systematic use of the state's judicial and repressive apparatus to quell dissent, reveal US cables obtained by WikiLeaks and made available exclusively to Bivol.bg and EurActiv.com.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán presented in Brussels yesterday (14 April) his country's accomplishments halfway through its EU presidency. Pre-empting tough questions on Hungarian internal politics, Orbán lashed out at some of Europe's "absurdities".

The socialist opposition in EU candidate country Macedonia has announced it is leaving the country's parliament, in protest against a move by the centre-right government to block the bank accounts of several media companies.

Many Serbs feel they are superior in South Eastern Europe and feel offended that Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union first, Hungarian centre-right MEP György Schöpflin (European People's Party), shadow rapporteur on Serbia, told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.