southeastern europe

After months of a bitter confrontation between Macedonia's ruling coalition and the opposition and a protracted boycott of the Sobranie by the opposition SDSM as well as the smaller NDP, NSDP, ND and LPD, voters in the Republic of Macedonia (and the diaspora where for the first time three representatives were to be elected) have gone to the polls.  Despite declarations of success by political leaders from the major parties, the results are characterized by considerable complexity. The incumbent Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski, has managed to win his third consecutive election, confirming his and his party's hegemony over Macedonia's politics. This achievement cannot be underestimated; under Gruevski, VMRO-DMPNE has indisputably become hegemonic in Macedonian politics, almost impervious to criticisms of its often authoritarian style of government. His majority however is much more reduced and a VMRO-DMPNE government is likely to have a less easy ride in the Sobranie. 

A voice of desperation originally published in http://www.lalibre.be Balkans La Macédoine, une démocratie en danger Mis en ligne le 01/07/2010 La Grèce continue fermement à bloquer toute candidature de la Macédoine tant que la dispute sur le nom qui oppose les deux pays ne sera pas résolue. Une opinion de Tanja Milevska de la TV macédonienne Van Gijsel La présidence belge de l’ UE a commencé et malgré la tempête politique, s’il y a une chose à laquelle la Belgique a toujours été dévouée, c’est bien l’ Europe . Le Premier Ministre sortant, Yves Leterme , l’a confirmé, l’élargissement restera une priorité européenne sous présidence belge. Mais pour nous qui suivons de près ce dossier, il est très clair qu’une fois encore, il sera réduit surtout à des paroles d’encouragement pour les pays des Balkans occidentaux à continuer le processus de réformes visant à les rapprocher des standards européens, et encore une fois il sera répété que la destination finale

My interview was mentioned in the Facebook fan group of Antonis Samaras – the architect of Greece ’s Macedonian quagmire and aspiring leader of Nea Dimokratia. The author of the comment, Mr Evangelos Papathanassiou has not bothered to check which book has excited Macedonian opinion and therefore provides a surreal narrative about the "Greek" academic at King's College (sic) who wrote a book about the persecution of the Macedonians by Greece that culminates in accusing my opinions as left-nihilist and moves on to associate them with the views of the Greek prime minister George Papandreou just because our book was featured in the book pages of his website. Mr Papathanassiou seems to be of the impression that whenever a book is presented in a website, it is endorsed. The idea of a book being a starting point of an intellectual search and adventure seems to be alien to him. I found his use of adjective s personally offensive and his logic simplistic and dangerously populi