Macedonia PM: No Room for EU Skepticism

“We are aware that Greece is our problem,” Gruevski told media after the joint lunch meeting at Fouere’s residence in Skopje, adding that the country will keep up its efforts to resolve the long running name spat with Athens.

The party leaders discussed this week’s EU Council decision in which foreign ministers postponed reaching decision on on whether to give Skopje a start date for EU accession talks following Greek objections. 

Fouere met political leaders and asked for their opinions on how the country can solve the long running dispute with Greece in the next six months, local A1 TV reported.

Other party leaders that attended the meeting said the talks were constructive, the MIA news agency said.

“We would like to move our country towards the EU and NATO, and we will not be brought down by this decision, Gruevski noted.

Other than Gruevski who is also the head of the main ruling centre right VMRO-DPMNE party, the meeting was attended by Branko Crvenkovski the head of the main opposition party, the Social-Democrats, SDSM.

The head of the junior ruling party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, Ali Ahmeti, as well as the leaders of the opposition New Democracy, News Social Democrats and the Liberal Democrats, Imer Selmani, Tito Petkovski and Jovan Manasijevski were also there.

Only the opposition Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA leader Menduh Taci did not show up.

The meeting comes after a series of statements by the prime minister and president were interpreted by the public a sparking EU skepticism among the public.

On Wednesday and Thursday protests were staged in front of the EU office in Skopje by several student associations. However, few students showed up at the rally. Instead, media reported organised groups of workers and ruling party supporters from other parts of Macedonia who were dominant at the protests.

VMRO DPMNE denied any relation to the events.