Sat, Jul 04 2009
Leaders of 26 members states of Nato, who descended on Bucharest for the alliance's three-day summit on April 2, have agreed to extend invitations to join the organisation to Albania and Croatia, but were yet to reach agreement on Macedonia's application.
Talks on the issue would continue on April 3, Nato spokesperson James Appathurai told reporters at a media briefing.
Greece has threatened to veto Macedonia's bid over the name dispute with Skopje. Greece refuses to accept its neighbour's constitutional name, saying Macedonia is the name of Northern Greece and that having Skopje use it is indicative of its implicit territorial claims over the northern Greek province. The alliance uses the consensus principle, meaning that no decision can be made unless all member states are in agreement.
"The invitation will be postponed," one European Nato diplomat told Reuters.
Doing so would fuel radical feelings in the country and destabilise the region, Albania's prime minister Sali Berisha said. "The stability of this neighbor is very crucial for Albania, for Kosovo, for Greece, to Bulgaria, to all its neighbors. My fear is that radicals from all ethnicities there could be strengthened," he told Reuters.
A possible solution would be to extend a conditional invitation, pending the resolution of talks between Skopje and Athens, a British source familiar with the talks told Romanian-language news agency Newsin.
Georgia and Ukraine, two more countries hoping to secure membership action plans, the first step towards Nato membership, were unlikely to be successful, Reuters said.
Germany remains opposed to offer such roadmaps to the two former Soviet republics, considering them unprepared, despite strong lobbying from the US. Russia is also strongly against what it sees as an encroachment of its traditional sphere of influence.
In a blow against a problem that has been plaguing Bulgaria’s elections, State Agency for National Security and Interior Ministry say several people in a ‘major criminal organisation’ have been arrested for vote-buying, on the eve of the July 5 vote.
Barometer Info survey on July 3 2009, just ahead of the eve of Bulgaria’s national parliamentary elections, gives GERB 27.05 per cent and Sergei Stanishev’s Coalition for Bulgaria 19.09 per cent.
The exact number of people sacked from duty out of the 600 who refused to go to work on Monday is undisclosed, although reports claim that as of June 3 at least four people were told they were surplus to requirements.
Open your mind and face the unknown: the 2009 general elections in Bulgaria.
City halls have the power to decide the time frame of the ban on alcohol in stores, bars and restaurants