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Rastello: Greek economic crisis, chance to solve name issue
30. April 2012. | 11:43
Source: MIA
According to him, Europe has harmed itself with the delay in Macedonia's recognition following Yugoslavia's breakup, despite Badinter's recommendations. He referred to the period of the war with Serbia, when Europe did not manage to see Macedonia's significance as a peace knot.
The economic crisis in Greece, which is forced to look for financial assistance from Europe, creates a big opportunity for settlement of the name row. Europe is already convinced that it should recognize Macedonia's full sovereignty, including the right of its own name, says Luca Rastello, journalist in Italian daily "La Repubblica" and editor of on-line portal and research center "Observatory for the Balkans and Caucasus".
"From an ethical point of view, Europe's task is to enable the full self-determination of a country such as Macedonia with regards to all issues, including the name. In this sense, I believe that Europe is already convinced that it should recognize the full sovereignty of Macedonia. And taking into account the economic crisis in Greece, which is put in a situation to seek for assistance from Europe, now there is a big chance for this", said Rastello, who delivered Thursday a lecture at the Skopje-based EU Info Center titled "A View towards the Future - Macedonia between Europe and the Orient".
According to him, Europe has harmed itself with the delay in Macedonia's recognition following Yugoslavia's breakup, despite Badinter's recommendations. He referred to the period of the war with Serbia, when Europe did not manage to see Macedonia's significance as a peace knot.
"Europe needed Macedonia at that time, missing a big opportunity to acknowledge the country as an equal interlocutor. Moreover, Europe had to cope with all requests coming from the outside, especially Greece", added Rastello.
Pertaining to Macedonia's perspectives, he assessed the country as a crossroad that has things to offer to Europe.
Comments (2)
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01. May 2012. 07:23:10
| Ime
1
What's wrong with the reporting on this website? Why is there never articles commenting about FYROM's sudden identity change into ancient Macedonians and "United Macedonia" irredentist language? This selective one-sided sourcing of articles and facts is really starting to come off as racism against Greeks. The longer it continues, the more obvious it becomes. Just because everyone decided to reference FYROM propagandists as "Macedonians" does not morally absolve a media outlet from reporting facts. For instance...
'We are not related to the northern Greeks who produced leaders like Philip and Alexander the Great. We are a Slav people and our language is closely related to Bulgarian.' - FYROM´s Ambassador to Canada Gyordan Veselinov, Ottawa Citizen Newspaper, February 24 1999
'We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great.' - FYROM'S Ambassador Ljubica Acevshka, speech to US representatives in Washington on January 22 1999
"The creation of the Macedonian nation, for almost half of a century, was done in a condition of single-party dictatorship. In those times, there was no difference between science and ideology, so the “Macedonian” historiography, unopposed by anybody, comfortably performed a selection of the historic material from which the “Macedonian” identity was created. There is nothing atypical here for the process of the creation of any modern nation, except when falsification from the type of substitution of the word “Bulgarian” with the word “Macedonian” were made." (Denko Maleski, former Minister of foreign affairs of FYROM from 1991 to 1993 in an interview to FYROM newspaper Utrinski Vesnik)
http://www.utrinski.com.mk/?ItemID=C7A7DD4ECD45C946BF6573284EC01164
03. May 2012. 17:24:53
| Ime
1
Excellent article by Luca Rastello
It is nice to see an ever-increasing number of journalists and politicians from all countries telling the truth.