Macedonian delegation led by Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski ended yesterday a three-day official visit to Turkey. Crvenkovski and his Turkish counterpart Mrs. Tansu Ciler signed an agreement to avoid double taxation in order to stimulate bilateral economic relations. During the talks Turkish Prime Minister emphasized that Macedonia is a very important strategic point in the Balkans, adding that stability in Macedonia means stability in the entire Balkans.
The Macedonian delegation also met with Turkish President Suleiman Demirel. The latter said the visit was of particular importance, since it preceded his planned visit to Macedonia on June 12, when a general agreement is to be signed as a new stage in the overall development of good relations. On an initiative of the Macedonian contingent, talks included the East-West transversal and potential Turkish financial support for the project. Government spokesman Ismail met Turkish Minister Yildrin Aktuna, while Minister of Finance Miljovski met his counterpart Atila. In Istanbul, the Macedonian delegation met with representatives of influential financial and trade institutions and businessmen of Turkey to explore ways of expanding economic cooperation and joint initiatives in additional markets.
Upon returning from Turkey, Crvenkovski said the visit had been aimed at obtaining advanced economic cooperation on the basis of the already successful political cooperation. He added, 'although Turkey is one of our bigger trading partners, there is a lack of joint investment, companies with mixed capital and concession agreements.'
'It is important for Denmark to support Macedonia,' Danish Foreign Minister Neil Halve Pitersen said upon his arrival at the Skopje airport. His visit started with a meeting with President Gligorov together with Macedonian Foreign Minister Crvenkovski. They exchanged views on Macedonia's losses due to the embargo. Pitersen stated a readiness on the part of Denmark to provide concrete economic aid for Macedonia.
Gligorov expressed the hope that Macedonia will be admitted to the OSCE in the near future. Pitersen said Macedonia has a natural right to be included both in the OSCE and the Council of Europe, emphasizing that Denmark will continue to support it (Denmark is running for 1997 presidency over the OSCE). 'We hope that problems with Greece will be overcome in a satisfactory way, as this is of high importance to stability in the region; Greece, however, will have to lift its embargo that was condemned by Denmark as unjustified and unfair from the very beginning,' he said. Pitersen also had a separate meeting with Stevo Crvenkovski, together with Yorgen Boer, ambassador of Denmark to Macedonia and Trajce Mukaetov, honorary consul of Macedonia to Denmark.
Macedonian Foreign Minister Stevo Crvenkovski will probably fly to New York next week, Nova Makedonija writes, to meet UN mediator in the Greek-Macedonian dispute. This would be the 22nd visit of Crvenkovski to New York in the past 24 months and would include talks on conditions and possibilities of renewal of the interrupted negotiations between Macedonia and Greece. According to articles in the Greek press, talks would focus on the so-called 'small package', but Crvenkovski said three days ago that no 'spectacular solution' is to be expected.
The newly appointed Chief of the UNPREDEP Mission in Macedonia, Henrik Sokalski, arrived in Skopje yesterday. He will be acting as an assistant of the UN Secretary General, and his visit is aimed at getting acquainted with the Macedonian leadership, UNPREDEP senior officials and the political, economic and security situation in the country.
The republics of Macedonia and Croatia share close views on all issues regarding the situation in the former Yugoslavia, agreeing that rump Yugoslavia's demand to be granted legal succession to the former Yugoslavia is unacceptable. This was concluded at the recent talks between Macedonia President Gligorov and Onesti Cvitan, Croatian ambassador in Macedonia. Makpress reports Gligorov has invited Croatian President Tudjman to pay a visit to Macedonia.
Duma, the paper of the ruling Socialists in Bulgaria, published an article to demand changes in the country's official policy on the 'language dispute' with Macedonia. Reiterating the Bulgarian stance on 'common national roots', the paper suggests that the authorities in Sofia accept documents signed in the Macedonian language.
Starting today, 247 socially-owned shops in Macedonia (nearly 19,000 square meters) will be subjected to public auctions. In accordance to a recent government decision to lower prices by 25 to 50 per cent, a square meter will be sold at an initial price of DM 2,100. As projected by the government, an additional 30,000 square meters are to be offered for sale by the end of the year.
A two-day round table entitled "Professionalism and Informative Integration" will start today in Tirana, as organized by Radio Tirana's department for programs for Albanians abroad and the Soros Foundation. The seminar will be attended by editors of Albanian-language radio stations in Albania and throughout the world, as well as representatives of Radio Skopje and radio stations in Albanian from Macedonia.
Straso Angelkovski will be a president of MAAK over the next 4 year. On his suggestion, the name MAAK will be changed to MAAK-Conservative Party.
The restored church of St. Gjorgi in Mala Prespa, Albania, which is populated mostly by Macedonians, was consecrated again yesterday. The ceremony was performed by metropolitan of Prespa and Pelagonija, Father Petar.
(Puls, 16 June 1995)
The opening of auction packages of 'Makedonija Sport' and the Skopje Fair brought to light the question of protection of rights of tenderers. At the same time, an inclination of certain subjects to act and react slowly when it came to protection of their own ownership rights, also came to the surface. Had the Chamber of Commerce presented official evidence on ownership of the Fair within the due legal dead line, the farce of appraising submitted tenders would have surely not caused such a reaction and suspicion of the public in Macedonia. The third surprising factor is linked to the lack of a legal infrastructure needed to declare the Skopje Fair a public and monopoly enterprise. The need to accelerate the privatization process no longer allows for a disinterested approach in issuing laws on preventing monopolistic behavior, as well as on trade associations and the criteria on declaring an enterprise public. A number of dilemmas and fears would be dealt with if the Law on Trade Associations would secure protection for holders of small sets of shares, owning up to 5 per cent of votes. The fact that majority equity capital is at the first stage of being raised imposes a need for introducing principles of prevention of conflicts and abuse of majority rights, regardless of whether an enterprise is managed by joined trade associations or managerial teams.
The last session of the State Privatization Commission failed to resolve the dilemma in which a second-instance institution will be authorized to evaluate the regularity of the privatization process and the approvals issued by the Agency. Risto Ivanov, chairman of the Commission, says the Agency will be assigned a duty to prepare criteria (to be further approved by the managing board) and to make them known to all participants in the privatization models involving competition among tenders and offers. This is expected to prevent the Agency from favoring any of the interested parties. The cabinet sessions on privatization brought about no need for changes in the privatization process or models and legal solutions regarding the ongoing transformation of ownership in the country. The administration seems to be more occupied with ways to revitalize its obligation toward international financial partners (to achieve the set critical number of companies to be privatized), as well as toward the domestic public, the reactions of which still show anti-privatization characteristics. In such a contaminated political climate, the Macedonian government could obtain international affirmation in meeting the requirement to privatize 800 companies, but could lose its credibility at home, if it pays no attention to criticism pointing to irregularities, unprincipled approaches and even political favoritism.