Nato membership, progress towards the European Union and the scrapping of visa requirements for EU travel are Macedonia's top priorities for 2009, Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki says.

Macedonia this year failed to enter Nato due to a Greek blockade in April over the country's constitutional name, which Athens insists implies Skopje's territorial claims over its own province of the same name.

"At the moment Macedonia and Nato are drafting an additional annual action plan for membership, which aims to preserve the achievements in meeting the membership criteria thus far and wherever possible to further improve the performance," Milososki said at a session of the parliamentary foreign policy committee.
 
He said that the government remains fully committed to the United Nations-sponsored talks between the Skopje and Athens for reaching a settlement over the name issue. The talks have so far been fruitless.
 
The country this autumn also failed to get the desired date for start of the European Union accession talks for the third year in a row. The European Commission stated that the country needed more reforms for that.
 
The government has already designed an action plan for meeting the European Commission recommendations, Milososki said, expressing hope that the Czech Republic's announcement to put EU integration of the western Balkans on the top of its EU presidency agenda would result in getting the date over the course of 2009.
 
"Macedonia is feeling ready to start membership talks right now, and we believe that the country's administrative, political and institutional readiness is not below the one of the states that have entered negotiations or of some EU members in the time when they were part of the EU entry talks," Milososki said.
 
Speaking of scrapping the EU visa regime, which he also stated as one of the priorities, Milososki said Macedonia had thus far met all the necessary criteria to that effect and expected to enter the white EU Schengen list in 2009.
 
Macedonia's reforms towards full visa abolishment have been assessed highly by the EC and other European institutions.

Source: Balkan Insight