Greek and Macedonian Vice-PMs to Meet

Macedonian Vice PM Teuta Arifi | Photo by: sep.gov.mk

The meeting of the senior politicians will be the first formal contact between officials from two countries since Greece formed a government of national unity in November.

Arifi is expected to elaborate Macedonia's hopes of joining NATO and EU and its expectations that Greece will not impede the moves following the December 5 judgment of the International Court of Justice, ICJ, in The Hague.
 
The World Court found Greece guilty of breaching a UN 1995 deal with Macedonia when it blocked the country's membership of NATO in 2008. However, Athens has since said the ruling will not change Greece's stance.

The meeting comes on Arifi’s initiative, after other senior Greek officials recently turned down the offer of meeting Macedonia's Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski.

In December, Greek Prime Minister, Lucas Papademos, and the head of the centre-right New Democracy Party, Antonis Samaras, both replied negatively to a letter from Gruevski requesting renewed dialogue.

Arifi is expected to restate Gruevski’s request for a meeting with Papademos.

Athens and Skopje are locked in a two-decade long dispute over Macedonia's name. Greece insists that use of the term "Macedonia" by its neighbour implies a territorial claim to its own northern province of the same name.

The "name" issue was also the focus of a debate this week at the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs.

On Tuesday the Committee adopted the 2011 draft resolution on Macedonia's progress in which the European Parliament again urged Brussels to grant a start date for Macedonia’s EU accession talks.
 
Against the objections of Greek MEPs the committee's draft document said that Brussels should also take the recent ICJ ruling into consideration.

"The status quo is not sustainable", the European Parliament Rapporteur on Macedonia, Richard Howitt, who wrote the resolution, said on Tuesday.

Last week both countries resumed their UN sponsored name talks in New York after a one year pause. However, there has been no breakthrough.

Meanwhile NATO and EU officials reminded that despite the ICJ ruling, UN brokered talks must resume.