Macedonia PM: Clear Goals for Name Solution

“We have the necessary political will and our goal is to find a solution that will not jeopardize our national and state interests,” Gruevski said.

He replied to accusations from opposition leader Branko Crvenkovski of the Social Democrats, SDSM, who said that Skopje is only formally engaged in the name talks.

These statements come before the the UN name mediator Matthew Nimetz's upcoming visits to Skopje and Athens at the end of the month. Nimetz is expected to launch a fresh round of negotiations during his visit.

Macedonia expects the forthcoming visit of the UN mediator to add intensity to the process of achieving a settlement to the name row, Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki told media after a working lunch held Tuesday with several EU ambassadors to Macedonia.

“We think that the right moment for speeding up the name talks has come. However, there may be no solution if only one party is willing to consider concessions, while the other speaks about red lines,” Milososki said.

He added that it would be good if the EU paid more serious attention to this bilateral problem, as it has to  the Slovenia-Croatia border dispute, and enable the name negotiations and the accession process to simultaneously advance.

Macedonia’s bid to join the EU and NATO has been hampered by the Greek blockade over the unresolved name spat.
 
In December Athens prevented the EU from issuing a date for start of Macedonia's accession talks with the block. In 2008 Athens also blocked Skopje’s NATO accession.

Athens insists that Skopje's formal name, Republic of Macedonia, implies Skopje's territorial claims over Greece's own northern province, which is also called Macedonia.