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EU urges solution to Macedonia-Greece name row

19 February 2010, 17:17 CET
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(SKOPJE) - Now is the time for Athens and Skopje to resolve their 19-year old dispute over the use of the name Macedonia, EU enlargement chief Stefan Fuele said Friday.

"The leaders have a huge responsibility and a fantastic opportunity to make a lasting contribution to a wider regional stability and prosperity," said Fuele during a visit to Skopje.

"We have a window of opportunity and in the months to come, we had better use it," Fuele told reporters after meeting Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and other Macedonian officials.

The two neighbours have long been at loggerheads over the name Macedonia.

Macedonia the country was a part of Yugoslavia before independence in 1991, while Greece -- which has a northern province called Macedonia -- considers the name to be part of its heritage.

Macedonia joined the United Nations in 1993 under the provisional name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), but UN-led negotiations have yet to resolve the dispute.

The European Commission is to discuss the timeline for opening EU membership negotiations with Macedonia next month, but a decision to go ahead hinges on approval from by all EU member states -- including Greece.

Fule's visit -- his first to Skopje since becoming EU enlargement commissioner -- also came a week before a visit to Skopje and Athens by the UN chief mediator in the name dispute, Matthew Niemetz.

Macedonia's prime minister Gruevski said Friday that Skopje "remains devoted to finding a solution to overcome the dispute".

Macedonia -- an official candidate for EU membership since December 2005 -- "expects the dispute to be overcome in order for the state to be able to become a member of the EU and NATO, which is our strategic aim," he added.


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Fyrom

Posted by Stoyan Antonov at 23 February 2010, 23:41 CET
as i have explained in this forum many times before, my late uncle was born and grown in Pirin Macedonia, and - along his sister and my cousins - considered himself Bulgarian. I have met some strange infos on the Web- evrybody born in "Macedonia" was "Macedonian" (and not Bulgarian), which is complete lie! Ancient Macedonia was created about 2000 years before the main Slavic stream of immigrants poured into Balkans. Actually Balkans were inhebitted before at least 8000 years, as golden artifacts found in Bulgaria showed. In fact, old Slavs were the last wave of immigrants headed to Balkans, and culturally they were the least advanced (Iam partly Slavic). I have been going for years to US Covenent church in Northern Illinois and one of the visitors there is a Macedonian female who says "... if you are Macedonian then you are not Greek and not Slavic...". I am afraid Fyrom is stealing history and culture from its neighbours. Also here there is a different point - I have seen many people from different parts of Asia - with different cultural and ethnic history and background and race and religion claiming close historical ties with old Bulgarians - and I am proud with that. We are together and we are equal! "Macedonia" was nothing more but an Empire! It was harsh for its neighbours, bloody and ruinous. It never created intercultural - interathnic allieances with others, - and historically existed shortly. It was just occupation over other ethnic groups. So why Slavic people of Fyrom want so strongly to associate themselves with the old Empire? What Fyrom's like in it, what old Macedons did for Slavs? Or- if you put aside the names - the face - a union of equal people that merge to a strong unit is much better that a grown empire? I have seen posts like" Death to Bulgarian" and at the same time Fyroms coming to apply for Bulgarian citisenship? It is funny and pitty.