Macedonia urges faster decision on EU membership

Crisis-hit Macedonia has urged the West to accelerate its bid for membership of the European Union and Nato, to avoid further destabilisation of the country and the Balkans after 22 people were killed in a weekend gun battle.

Officials said eight police officers were killed in the town of Kumanovo, near Macedonia’s border with Kosovo and Serbia, along with 14 members of a “terrorist group” allegedly led by ethnic Albanian former rebels from Kosovo.

The siege, which lasted some 36 hours, stoked tension in Macedonia, where about one-third of the population are ethnic-Albanian, and deepened a political crisis that has sparked major protests against the scandal-hit government.

At a meeting with EU, US and Nato envoys yesterday, Macedonia’s president, Gjorge Ivanov, “stressed the need for support from the international community, in the interest of the stability of . . . Macedonia and the stability and security of the entire region”.

Euro-Atlantic integration

Mr Ivanov’s office said he “asked for every effort in unblocking the Euro-Atlantic integration” and blamed Macedonia’s crisis partly on “the long status quo in terms of the European integration, which leaves room for a variety of attempts for destabilisation and various kinds of speculations”.

Greece opposes its EU and Nato accession because it calls itself “Macedonia”, something Athens believes implies a territorial claim by the former Yugoslav republic to the Greek province of the same name.

The country of two million has many other problems. Widespread dissatisfaction with poverty, unemployment, lack of reforms and graft has been compounded by grave allegations about the government.

Over several months, opposition leader Zoran Zaev has released transcripts of wiretapped conversations between powerful figures, including senior officials, which reveal the extent of state eavesdropping; covert control over major institutions, the judiciary and media; and corrupt and anti-democratic practices.

Mr Zaev says he received the transcripts from disaffected whistleblowers in the intelligence services, but government officials say an unnamed state is involved in the leak, and the opposition leader has been charged with plotting a coup.

Critics accuse prime minister Nikola Gruevski, who has been in power since 2006, of silencing dissenting political and media voices.

Dozens of people were hurt when anti-government protests turned violent last week in the capital, Skopje. With public trust in government at rock bottom, many Macedonians suspect the Kumanovo clash is part of a government ploy to distract attention from its wrongdoing, possibly by stoking ethnic tension in a country that witnessed a brief ethnic Albanian insurgency in 2001.

Mr Zaev and others are asking how the Kumanovo gunmen entered the country, and why they were not dealt with earlier; Serbian military intelligence said yesterday that Belgrade warned Skopje about the group in April.

Moscow is also keeping a close eye on Macedonia, where it suspects western meddling in its plans to build a gas pipeline.