EU membership talks delay means ‘disappointment but not surprise’ in Macedonia

Sat, Feb 11 2012

Thu, Dec 10 2009 16:48 CET

byClive Leviev-Sawyer

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EU membership talks delay means ‘disappointment but not surprise’ in Macedonia

Government buildings, Skopje.

Photo: wikcom

Disappointment and frustration, leavened with a few notes of determination and optimism, have characterised official reaction in Skopje to the decision by the European Council of Ministers to delay naming a date for the start of EU accession talks with Macedonia.

The decision not to decide a date was taken to give Skopje and Athens time to resolve their dispute about the use of the name Macedonia, the EU’s top envoy to Macedonia, Erwan Fouere, was reported as saying.

Fouere said that the December 8 decision by the EU Council of Ministers should not be likened to the decision at a Nato summit in Bucharest in 2008 not to invite Macedonia to join the military alliance. Greece was behind the decision not to invite Macedonia to join Nato, against the urging of major members of the alliance including the United States.

Fouere said that the EU decision was made to extend an opportunity for the continuation of name talks with Greece, Balkan Insight said.

European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said that "silent diplomacy" was being conducted about the name dispute, adding that the recommendation of the EU foreign ministers was not discouraging, Macedonia’s Utrinski Vesnik said, according to Bulgarian news agency Focus.

"There was progress over the past period. It is a matter of silent diplomacy. Thus, let me make a silent commentary," Rehn told journalists in Brussels.

Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt said that there was new momentum in Skopje-Athens relations.

Bildt said that he believed that Greek prime minister George Papandreou and Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski wanted to achieve a solution and, Bildt said, he was "a bigger optimist than before".

Macedonia was not happy about the decision to delay naming a date for membership talks, but it would not give up the process of EU integration and of negotiations on the name dispute with Greece, Macedonian daily Dnevnik said on December 10.

"Up to now, Greece did not want such a solution; it put conditions, which no government could accept. During my talks with Greek prime minister George Papandreou I said that he would not find a government that could fulfil his conditions over the next 100 years," Gruevski was quoted by Dnevnik as saying.

On December 9, Macedonian Radio and Television quoted the country's justice minister Mihajlo Manevski as saying that Macedonia would secure a start date for its EU membership negotiations, but not at the expense of its identity.

"We are not discouraged by the EU's decision to put off setting a date for Macedonia's EU entry talks. We will proceed with our comprehensive reform agenda," Manevski said.

On December 8, Gruevski said that the events at the EU Council of Ministers meeting had unfolded as expected, because Greece had announced its intention several times to block Macedonia’s EU aspirations if the two nations could not find a mutually acceptable resolution to the name dispute.

Earlier the same day, Macedonian president Gjorge Ivanov said that the EU was guilty of double standards.

"We will not cave in to pressure to change our name or identity just to be a part of the EU. We've lived this (hi)story many times before, not again. Whatever the outcome of the talks in Brussels, Macedonia will stay right here. We have a European perspective that will be achieved together, with the support of all ethnic and religious communities, all parties and all citizens of Macedonia," Ivanov said.

Greek news agency ANA-MPA quoted Greece’s alternate foreign minister Dimitris Droutsas and Cyprus foreign minister Markos Kyprianou as having expressed, in a joint statement, their satisfaction with the decision about Macedonia, underlining that the positive results were supported by close coordination between Greece and Cyprus.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Welle, in a report on December 10, quoted Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov as rejecting claims that Bulgaria had been among those that had blocked a date being named for Macedonia’s EU membership talks.

"Our position was the same as the one we agreed with Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski. Bulgaria backs Macedonia," Borissov said, adding that claims that Sofia had stood in the way of Sofia’s hopes originated from people that wanted to foul bilateral relations between the two neighbouring countries.

Borissov declined to comment on whether Skopje would get a starting date for talks during the Spanish presidency of the EU, which will be in the first six months of 2010, but said that he hoped that the name dispute would be resolved soon.