Kathimerini: Belgium Diplomats Pressure Greece over Macedonia

Greece is under increasing pressure from some of its European Union partners to relent, and allow Macedonia to open negotiations to join the EU without insisting on a name change, the Greek daily Kathimerini reports.

According to the quoted Greek sources, one of these countries is Belgium, whose diplomats have begun to send "alarming messages" to Greece over Macedonia.

“The reason for concern is particularly high given that the European Commission is expected to publish the Progress Report for Macedonia. The report is expected to include a recommendation to open the negotiations, as it has every year since 2009. The European Council has always rejected this recommendation,” Kathimerini writes.

While the Commission judges Macedonian compliance with the criteria for membership, Greece has veto powers at the European Council, and has used that right every year since 2009 to block the opening of negotiations, demanding that Macedonia must change its name before talks begin.

Kathimerini writes that this is an "unheard of" situation for the European institutional relations that leads to initiatives about how to break this deadlock between the Commission and the Council.

“One such initiative was the recent visit by a delegation of political directors from Benelux countries to Skopje, and on their return to Brussels, the political director in the Belgian Foreign Affairs Ministry contacted the Greek Embassy in Brussels to inquire for their intentions,” Kathimerini writes.

The Greek newspaper writes that the Belgian diplomats accepted the Greek position that Macedonia is reticent on the name issue, but nevertheless, demanded that Greece must take action.

“They didn't hide their concern that Macedonia might come under the Russian or Turkish sphere of influence if it loses its European perspective. They have asked Greek diplomats, that if the Commission again repeats its recommendation to open the talks, Greece would accept it and keep Macedonia's European perspective open. Belgian diplomats were quick to add that, even if Greece does so, it will still be able to block the entry of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the European Union, if the name issue is not resolved by the end of the negotiations,” Kathimerini writes.

This initiative is similar to the one that European Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule made in the past two years, recommending that the name issue talks proceeds side by side with the Macedonian talks for EU membership.

“Fule insisted that if this is the case, a solution to the name issue will be easy to find,” Kathimerini writes, adding that this proposal didn't find much support in Europe, excluding Austria.

The Greek daily, which is close to the Andonis Samaras’ government, also writes that Greek diplomatic analysts estimate that the situation is becoming less favourable for them given that Greece is unable to gain new allies on this issue, and is facing increasing calls that something is done. It also writes that Greek Foreign Affairs Minister Venizelos was forced in December 2013 to give up on his attempts to make the European Council demand specific progress from Macedonia.

- See more at: http://www.independent.mk/articles/9998/Kathimerini+Belgium+Diplomats+Pressure+Greece+over+Macedonia#sthash.yVQO5yCz.dpuf