Macedonia

Greece found an ally in Bulgaria in preventing Macedonia from obtaining a start date for EU accession talks at a Tuesday’s EU meeting in Brussels.At the EU meeting, where Macedonia had been hoping to obtain a start date for membership talks, Greece justified its blockade once more on the grounds …

Macedonia has followed in the footsteps of neighbouring Bulgaria in offering citizenship to foreigners ready to invest in the country.Macedonia’s government plans to offer citizenship to anyone who invests at least 400,000 euro and employs at least 10 people. “This offer stands for all investors except those in the hospitality …

Albania’s announcement that it plans to offer speedy citizenship to ethnic Albanians across the world has stirred huge interest in Kosovo while ruffling feathers elsewhere in the region.Kosovars have been crowding outside the Albanian embassy in Pristina in larger numbers than usual lately, in the hope of obtaining an Albanian …

Ahead of the EU Council of Ministers discussion on Macedonia’s blocked EU bid, Athens sends a message dampening Skopje’s hopes of opening EU accession talks prior to the resolution of the ‘name’ dispute.The Greek Foreign Ministry said that the condition for lifting its blockade to Macedonia’s EU membership remains the …

Burning Macedonian flags in Albania, and pelting the Macedonian Prime Minister’s car, were unacceptable incidents, the Presidents of Macedonia and Albania agreed in Montenegro.Macedonia’s President, Gjorge Ivanov, and his Albanian counterpart, Bujar Nishani, met on Wednesday at the sidelines of the fourth regional presidential summit under the working title, “Cooperation …

Skopje had agreed to the three terms that Sofia has set as preconditions for Bulgaria’s support for Macedonia’s EU integration process.In a letter sent on Tuesday, Macedonia’s Foreign Minister, Nikola Poposki, wrote to tell his Bulgarian counterpart, Nikolay Mladenov, that the proposals contained in Mladenov’s earlier letter were acceptable. They …

Macedonian doctors staging a two-week-long strike say they will take more radical steps if Health Minister Nikola Todorov acts on threats to punish them.The Independent Trade Union of Medical Clinics, which is heading the strike by medics, on Tuesday said they will erect tents in front of the Health Ministry, …

Following a RECOM round table in Skopje, the Macedonian President, Gjorge Ivanov, met the team of regional REKOM advocates.REKOM advocates from Macedonia, Biljana Vankovska, from Bosnia, Zdravko Grebo, and from Serbia, Natasa Kandic met with Ivanov on Sunday.

Berlin think tank launches upgraded initiative to solve the dispute between Macedonia and Greece so that the former can advance its EU integration.The lead analyst of the European Stability Initiative, Gerald Knaus, said the solution would foresee a change to Macedonia’s name that would come into force permanently on the …

Many Macedonians hope that Johan Tarculovski, the only Macedonian national convicted for war crimes by the Hague Tribunal, could soon be released following the recent acquittals of Kosovo’s Ramush Haradinaj and Croatia’s Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac.“Free Johan immediately!”, “Only our Johan remains to rot in jail”, and “End the …