DOCSLIB.ORG

Download

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Download Südosteuropa 58 (2010), H. 3, S. 414-435 DOKUMENTATION EVANGELOS KOFOS The Macedonian Name Controversy. Texts and Commentary Abstract. This contribution documents the Greek attitude towards the so-called “name issue” between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). It presents key documents and contextualizes their origins, thereby illustrating both the Greek official posi- tion and Greek public opinion. The article gives an overview of developments from 1991 to the present. In conclusion, the author suggests a sustainable solution to the matter. Evangelos Kofos has dealt with the “Macedonian Question” both as a political advisor and as an historian. For close to two decades he has been a Special Advisor for the Balkans to the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) in Athens. For several years, he served as Special Counsellor on Balkan affairs in the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Introduction In the late hours of 16 December 1991, the European Community Council of Foreign Ministers concluded a lengthy session on procedures for the recognition of several of the former Yugoslav federative republics’ independence. The next day, readers of the “Declaration on Yugoslavia”, may have been perplexed by a cryptic paragraph at the document’s end: “The Community and its member States also require a Yugoslav [unnamed] Republic to commit itself, prior to recognition, to adopt constitutional and political guarantees ensuring that it has no territorial claims toward a neigh- bouring [also unnamed] Community State and that it will conduct no hostile propaganda activities versus a neighbouring Community State, including the use of a denomination which implies territorial claims”1 It was obvious that this sentence was included at the insistence of the Greek government. Despite its vagueness, the sentence revealed that a charged issue, one which had, on and off, negatively affected Greek-Yugoslav relations since 1 European Political Cooperation Press Release, P. 129/91, 16 December 1991, reprinted in: Yannēs Valinakēs / Sotirēs Dalēs, To Zētēma tōn Skopiōn. Episēma Keimena 1990-1995 [The Issue of Skopje. Official Documents]. Athens 1996, 51. The Macedonian Name Controversy 415 the Second World War, had emerged on the European level at the critical mo- ment of the imminent collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It seemed as if, at the end of the century, the European politicians were faced with a modern edition of the early 20th century “Macedonian Question”, an issue of contested territories and identities. The key words in the foreign ministers’ text sounded ominous enough: The mention of “territorial claims” revealed long-entrenched Greek concerns over their northern provinces; “hostile propaganda”, a peculiar expression for mi- nority claims, which, in the eyes of Greek political elites, involved security risks for the country; and, finally, an issue defined as the “name”. The final issue, strangely enough, was linked to the aforementioned “territorial claims”, yet its true focus was on issues of conflicting identities. Two decades later, the first two key issues of the December 1991 declaration have faded to a considerable degree. The “name issue”, however, has survived to this day, stirring endless debates in international fora, and negatively affect- ing relations between Athens and Skopje. Moreover, by means of the internet and numerous blogs, negative and at times hostile messages are spread to wider audiences, and particularly to younger age groups in the neighbouring countries and the various diasporas. The following pages seek to approach the key parameters of this “name is- sue” by means of a selected documentation and a commentary, focusing on the Greek side of the problem. In displaying the current diplomatic imbroglio which has directly involved three international organizations – the United Nations, the European Union, and NATO – the author provides the readers with some insight on (a) the origins of the dispute, (b) the involvement of the international community, (c) the various stages of formulating and carrying out Greek official policy, (d) the role of public opinion, and (e) proposals for an exit scenario. The Origins of Greece’s Policy with Regards to the Current “Macedonian Issue” A Brief Historical Aperçu The original “Macedonian question” emerged in the last decades of the 19th century and covered the two first decades of the 20th. Simply stated, it was a contest between three young Balkan states, vying with each other to inherit the possessions of the crumbling Ottoman Empire. The vaguely defined “Macedo- nian” lands were both the prize and the apple of discord for Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbs. For the European powers, the treaties of the Balkan Wars (Bucharest 1913) and the First World War (Neuilly 1919 and Lausanne 1923), terminated the armed conflicts in Southeast Europe, rendering the “Macedonian Ques- 416 Evangelos Kofos tion” a challenging subject for historians rather than politicians.2 Not so for the locals. Perceptions of an endured “historical injustice”, lost homelands for hundreds of thousands of uprooted natives, various types of population exchanges, all followed by suppressive measures for the induction of varied ethnic groups into new unified political environments, kept the issue alive. Out of the peace settle- ments, Greece had emerged as a status quo country, Bulgaria as an irredentist one. Former Serbia, subsequently Yugoslavia, had turned introvert seeking to put its multi-ethnic state entity in order. Soon, new international actors emerged in the region, intent on plying the murky Macedonian terrain for their own benefit. The first to challenge the recently established status quo was the Communist International (Comintern) which was quick to introduce a novel blueprint for a future Balkan Communist Federation. A Macedonian state, to be composed of the Macedonian provinces of Greece, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria was expected to be one of its constituent members. The initial reference to a “Macedonian people” included all inhabitants of the Macedonian regions, irrespective of their ethnic background. Gradually, however, the Comintern’s documents began to attach an ethnic identity to the name, compelling all Balkan communists to adhere, nolens-volens, to Moscow’s constructions.3 The second intervention was Nazi Germany’s occupation of the Balkans in the Second World War and its apportionment of Greek and Yugoslav Macedonian lands to its allies, Italy and Bulgaria. For Greece, the four year occupation of its Macedonian provinces (1941-1944) and the subsequent Civil War (1946-1949) opened traumatic wounds on issues of security and identity. For decades, those wounds were still visible in Greek state policies as well as in public perceptions of the country’s security. They certainly influenced and shaped Greek political 2 For an up to date Greek and international bibliography on the subject consult the recently published book by Vasilis Gounaris, I Istoriografia tou Makedonikou Zitimatos, 19os to 21os aiones [The Historiography of the Macedonian Question, 19th to 21th centuries]. Athens 2010. 3 That was a time when Stalin’s Soviet Union was engaged in creating or recognizing new ethnicities for its own political ends (“Belorussians”, “Moldovans”etc.). Much later, on 7 June, 1946, in a meeting with Yugoslav and Bulgarian leaders in the Kremlin, Stalin reprimanded Georgi Dimitrov for his reservations to assigning a “Macedonian” ethnic identity to the in- habitants of Bulgarian Pirin Macedonia which would be opening another Pandora’s box for the Macedonian Question: “You do not want to grant autonomy to Pirin Macedonia. The fact that the population has yet to develop a Macedonian consciousness is of no account. No such consciousness existed either in Belarus when we proclaimed it a Soviet republic. However, later it was shown that a Belorussian people did in fact exist.” Minutes from the Archives of the Communist Party of Bulgaria, published in Otecestven Vestnik, 19 June 1990. The Macedonian Name Controversy 417 thinking vis-à-vis the former Socialist Republic of Macedonia’s declaration of independence and various related identity issues.4 Nevertheless, the reactions of Greek political leaders and the masses in 1991- 93, particularly in the region of Macedonia, were not an instinctive, backward jump into the vicissitudes of the 1940s. On the contrary, in December 1991 Greece merely stressed, perhaps with a dose of hyperbole, what had been a traditional policy, shared by all parliamentary parties. Particularly enlightening in this respect is an August 1983 circular letter ad- dressed to Greek missions abroad by the first PASOK Foreign Minister in An- dreas Papandreou’s government, Yannis Haralambopoulos.5 The text reflected the policy of all post-Civil War Greek governments on the issue of the “Mac- edonian nation” and the identity of the Slavs of the wider Macedonian region. DOCUMENT A Foreign Minister Yannis Haralambopoulos on 13 August 1983, in a letter to diplomatic and press missions abroad.6 “The Greek policy on the Macedonian issue consistently pursues the same line since 1950 [the end of the Greek Civil War]. Greece raises no territorial or minority claims to the Macedonian lands of Yugoslavia or Bulgaria, but [for its part] does not accept the existence of a “Macedonian” minority on its territory. More specifically, Greece pursues the following line vis-à-vis the Yugoslav position on the ‘Macedonian nation’: – It does not recognize the existence of a ‘Macedonian’ nation, language etc. This negative position refers to the appropriation of a geographical term – which also is in use in Greece – by a nationality which was constructed in Yugoslavia for political reasons, after the Second World War. If another name is adopted, Greece would have no problem to accept it.7 – It insists on the use of the term ‘Macedonia’ solely as a geographical concept. Not wishing to interfere in the internal affairs of a foreign country, it does 4 For English language books on the Macedonian problem during the decade 1940-1950 consult Evangelos Kofos, Nationalism and Communism in Macedonia: Civil Conflict, Poli- tics of Mutation, National Identity.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Making of Yugoslavia's People's Republic of Macedonia 377 Ward the Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party Hardened
    THE MAKING OF YUGOSLAVIA’S PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA Fifty years since the liberation of Macedonia, the perennial "Ma­ cedonian Question” appears to remain alive. While in Greece it has deF­ initely been settled, the establishment of a "Macedonian State” within the framework of the People’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has given a new form to the old controversy which has long divided the three Balkan States, particularly Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. The present study tries to recount the events which led to its founding, the purposes which prompted its establishment and the methods employed in bringing about the tasks for which it was conceived. The region of Southern Yugoslavia,' which extends south of a line traversed by the Shar Mountains and the hills just north of Skopje, has been known in the past under a variety of names, each one clearly denoting the owner and his policy concerning the region.3 The Turks considered it an integral part of their Ottoman Empire; the Serbs, who succeeded them, promptly incorporated it into their Kingdom of Serbs and Croats and viewed it as a purely Serbian land; the Bulgarians, who seized it during the Nazi occupation of the Balkans, grasped the long-sought opportunity to extend their administrative control and labeled it part of the Bulgarian Father- land. As of 1944, the region, which reverted to Yugoslavia, has been known as the People’s Republic of Macedonia, one of the six federative republics of communist Yugoslavia. The new name and administrative structure, exactly as the previous ones, was intended for the purpose of serving the aims of the new re­ gime.
    [Show full text]
  • ANNEX 2 Crosstabulations of the Survey Questions with The
    "WHO OWNS ALEXANDER THE GREAT?": A QUESTION UPON WHICH EU ENLARGEMENT RELIES ANNEX 2 Crosstabulations of the survey questions with the respondents ethnicity According to you which was the most important period for the formation of Macedonian identity? Ethnicity Macedonian Albanian Turk According to you which Antiquity 7.6% 0.5% was the most important Medieval Slavic Christianity (period of 22.2% 12.5% 21.9% period for formation of Brothers Cyril and Methodius) Macedonian identity? Ilinden Uprising (organized revolt 16.7% 1.9% 18.8% against the Ottoman Empire 1903) Partisan period of WWII 7.6% 4.6% 15.6% SFR Yugoslavia 14.5% 19.0% 18.8% Independence (1991- present) 21.5% 19.4% 12.5% Bucharest agreement (1913) 0.2% I don’t know 7.5% 13.9% 12.5% No answer 2.0% 28.2% They are all important The end of the 19century 0.2% Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0 % Ethnicity Roma Serbian Vlach Other According to you which Antiquity 4.5% 18.2% was the most important Medieval Slavic Christianity 17.4% 13.6% 32.0% 4.5% period for formation of (period of Brothers Cyril Macedonian identity? and Methodius) Ilinden Uprising (organized 8.7% 18.2% 12.0% 18.2% revolt against the Ottoman Empire 1903) Partisan period of WWII 13.0% 18.2% 12.0% SFR Yugoslavia 32.6% 22.7% 20.0% 45.5% Independence (1991- 8.7% 18.2% 20.0% 13.6% present) Bucharest agreement (1913) I don’t know 15.2% 4.0% No answer 4.3% They are all important 4.5% The end of the 19century Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% Ethnicity Total Refuse to answer According to you which was the Antiquity 5.8% most important
    [Show full text]
  • A THREAT to "STABILITY" Human Rights Violations in Macedonia
    Macedoni Page 1 of 10 A THREAT TO "STABILITY" Human Rights Violations in Macedonia Human Rights Watch/Helsinki Human Rights Watch Copyright © June 1996 by Human Rights Watch. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. ISBN: 1-56432-170-3 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-77111 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This report was researched and written by Fred Abrahams, a consultant to Human Rights Watch/Helsinki. It is based primarily on a mission to Macedonia conducted in July and August 1995. During that time, Human Rights Watch/Helsinki spoke with dozens of people from all ethnic groups and political persuasions. Extensive interviews were conducted throughout the country with members of government, leaders of the ethnic communities, human rights activists, diplomats, journalists, lawyers, prison inmates and students. The report was edited by Jeri Laber, Senior Advisor to Human Rights Watch/Helsinki. Anne Kuper provided production assistance. Human Rights Watch/Helsinki would like to thank the many people in Macedonia and elsewhere who assisted in the preparation of this report, especially those who took the time to read early drafts. Thanks also go to those members of the Macedonian government who helped by organizing a prison visit, providing information or granting lengthy interviews. I. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS Macedonia faces difficulties on several fronts. As a former member of the Yugoslav federation, the young republic is in a transition from communism in which it must decentralize its economy, construct democratic institutions and revitalize its civil society. These tasks, demanding under any circumstances, have been made more difficult by Macedonia's proximity to the war in Bosnia.
    [Show full text]
  • Bosnia to War, to Dayton, and to Its Slow Peace – European Council On
    REPORT BOSNIA TO WAR, TO DAYTON, AND TO ITS SLOW PEACE Carl Bildt January 2021 SUMMARY The international community was gravely unprepared for the conflicts that followed the dissolution of Yugoslavia. In particular, it neglected the challenge of Bosnia. Europe alone was not enough to bring peace, and the United States went from disinterested to disruptive and finally to decisive for a credible peace process. Russia in those days was a constructive actor. The war in Bosnia lasted years longer than it should have more because of the divisions between outside powers than because of the divisions within the country and the region itself. The fundamentals of the Dayton Agreement in 1995 were not too dissimilar from what had been discussed, but not pursued, prior to the outbreak of the war. It is a solution that is closer to the reality of Belgium than to the reality of Cyprus. After the war, many political leaders in Bosnia saw peace as the continuation of the war by other means, which has seriously hampered economic and social progress. Ultimately, it will be difficult to sustain progress for Bosnia or the region without a credible and clear EU accession process. INTRODUCTION It was a quarter of a century ago that the most painful conflict on European soil since the second world war came to an end. Peace agreements are rare birds. Most conflicts end either with the victory of one of the sides or some sort of ceasefire that is rarely followed by a true peace agreement. The map of Europe shows a number of such ‘frozen conflicts’.
    [Show full text]
  • Gender Stereotypes and Media Bias in Women's
    Gender Stereotypes and Media Bias in Women’s Campaigns for Executive Office: The 2009 Campaign of Dora Bakoyannis for the Leadership of Nea Dimokratia in Greece by Stefanos Oikonomou B.A. in Communications and Media Studies, February 2010, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens A Thesis submitted to The Faculty of College of Professional Studies of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Professional Studies August 31, 2014 Thesis directed by Michael Cornfield Associate Professor of Political Management Acknowledgments I would like to thank my parents, Stella Triantafullopoulou and Kostas Oikonomou, to whom this work is dedicated, for their continuous love, support, and encouragement and for helping me realize my dreams. I would also like to thank Chrysanthi Hatzimasoura and Philip Soucacos, for their unyielding friendship, without whom this work would have never been completed. Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to Professor Michael Cornfield for his insights and for helping me cross the finish line; Professor David Ettinger for his guidance during the first stage of this research and for helping me adjust its scope; and the Director of Academic Administration at The Graduate School of Political Management, Suzanne Farrand, for her tremendous generosity and understanding throughout this process. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………..ii List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………….vi List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………….vii
    [Show full text]
  • Analysis of Historical Events in Greek Occupied Macedonia Part 3
    Analysis of historical events in Greek occupied Macedonia Part 3 An interview with Risto Stefov Analysis of historical events in Greek occupied Macedonia An interview with Risto Stefov Part 3 Published by: Risto Stefov Publications [email protected] Toronto, Canada All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written consent from the author, except for the inclusion of brief and documented quotations in a review. Copyright 2018 by Risto Stefov e-book edition *** April 12, 2018 *** 2 INTERVIEWER – In this interview I would like to ask you some questions about your family and verify some of the things your dad and uncle had said to me in their interviews. Was your grandfather Risto involved in the Illinden Uprising? I remember seeing a photo on someone’s wall. What can you tell me about his life in the village? RISTO – My grandfather Risto was not involved in the Ilinden Uprising because, from what my father had told me, he was not in Macedonia. He was on pechalba (migrant work) but I don’t know where and for how long. He purchased a rifle and wanted to return but the borders were shut and he could not come back in time. He did come back later and brought the rifle with him and gave it to his oldest son Lazo who then used it during the German-Italian- Bulgarian occupation when he was a partisan for a brief period of time before he died in 1943.
    [Show full text]
  • Revolt and Crisis in Greece
    REVOLT AND CRISIS IN GREECE BETWEEN A PRESENT YET TO PASS AND A FUTURE STILL TO COME How does a revolt come about and what does it leave behind? What impact does it have on those who participate in it and those who simply watch it? Is the Greek revolt of December 2008 confined to the shores of the Mediterranean, or are there lessons we can bring to bear on social action around the globe? Revolt and Crisis in Greece: Between a Present Yet to Pass and a Future Still to Come is a collective attempt to grapple with these questions. A collaboration between anarchist publishing collectives Occupied London and AK Press, this timely new volume traces Greece’s long moment of transition from the revolt of 2008 to the economic crisis that followed. In its twenty chapters, authors from around the world—including those on the ground in Greece—analyse how December became possible, exploring its legacies and the position of the social antagonist movement in face of the economic crisis and the arrival of the International Monetary Fund. In the essays collected here, over two dozen writers offer historical analysis of the factors that gave birth to December and the potentialities it has opened up in face of the capitalist crisis. Yet the book also highlights the dilemmas the antagonist movement has been faced with since: the book is an open question and a call to the global antagonist movement, and its allies around the world, to radically rethink and redefine our tactics in a rapidly changing landscape where crises and potentialities are engaged in a fierce battle with an uncertain outcome.
    [Show full text]
  • The Historical Review/La Revue Historique
    The Historical Review/La Revue Historique Vol. 8, 2011 Greek Historiography and Slav-Macedonian National Identity Tziampiris Aristotle University of Piraeus https://doi.org/10.12681/hr.283 Copyright © 2011 To cite this article: Tziampiris, A. (2012). Greek Historiography and Slav-Macedonian National Identity. The Historical Review/La Revue Historique, 8, 215-225. doi:https://doi.org/10.12681/hr.283 http://epublishing.ekt.gr | e-Publisher: EKT | Downloaded at 27/09/2021 03:07:28 | GREEK HISTORIOGRAPHY AND SLAV-MACEDONIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY In his celebrated novel Η ζωή εν τάφω [Life in a tomb] (1954 edition), Greek author Stratis Myrivilis has the protagonist briefly stay in a village in the region of Macedonia during World War I. The peasants: …spoke a language understood both by Serbs and Bulgarians. The first they hate because they torment them and treat them as if they were Bulgarians; and they [also] hate the Bulgarians because they took their children to the war. Us [Greeks] they accept with some sympathetic curiosity, only because we are the genuine moral subjects of the…Ecumenical Patriarch.1 It is fair to assume that this encounter was with people that today most Greeks would have identified as Slav-Macedonians. The existence, formation and mutations of their national identity have posed an interpretative challenge to Greek scholars and proved a consistently controversial topic. Since the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) declared independence in September 1991, the name dispute has added a further layer of often emotional complexity to bilateral arguments and understandings of identity.2 Over the past century, a mainstream narrative has emerged in Greek historiography concerning when and how Slav-Macedonian national 1 Stratis Myrivilis, Η ζωή εν τάφω [Life in a tomb], Athens: Estia, n.d., p.
    [Show full text]
  • The Macedonian “Name” Dispute: the Macedonian Question—Resolved?
    Nationalities Papers (2020), 48: 2, 205–214 doi:10.1017/nps.2020.10 ANALYSIS OF CURRENT EVENTS The Macedonian “Name” Dispute: The Macedonian Question—Resolved? Matthew Nimetz* Former Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and former Special Envoy of President Bill Clinton, New York, USA *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] Abstract The dispute between Greece and the newly formed state referred to as the “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” that emerged out of the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991 was a major source of instability in the Western Balkans for more than 25 years. It was resolved through negotiations between Athens and Skopje, mediated by the United Nations, resulting in the Prespa (or Prespes) Agreement, which was signed on June 17, 2018, and ratified by both parliaments amid controversy in their countries. The underlying issues involved deeply held and differing views relating to national identity, history, and the future of the region, which were resolved through a change in the name of the new state and various agreements as to identity issues. The author, the United Nations mediator in the dispute for 20 years and previously the United States presidential envoy with reference to the dispute, describes the basis of the dispute, the positions of the parties, and the factors that led to a successful resolution. Keywords: Macedonia; Greece; North Macedonia; “Name” dispute The Macedonian “name” dispute was, to most outsiders who somehow were faced with trying to understand it, certainly one of the more unusual international confrontations. When the dispute was resolved through the Prespa Agreement between Greece and (now) the Republic of North Macedonia in June 2018, most outsiders (as frequently expressed to me, the United Nations mediator for 20 years) responded, “Why did it take you so long?” And yet, as protracted conflicts go, the Macedonian “name” dispute is instructive as to the types of issues that go to the heart of a people’s identity and a nation’s sense of security.
    [Show full text]
  • Blood Ties: Religion, Violence, and the Politics of Nationhood in Ottoman Macedonia, 1878
    BLOOD TIES BLOOD TIES Religion, Violence, and the Politics of Nationhood in Ottoman Macedonia, 1878–1908 I˙pek Yosmaog˘lu Cornell University Press Ithaca & London Copyright © 2014 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2014 by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2014 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Yosmaog˘lu, I˙pek, author. Blood ties : religion, violence,. and the politics of nationhood in Ottoman Macedonia, 1878–1908 / Ipek K. Yosmaog˘lu. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8014-5226-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8014-7924-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Macedonia—History—1878–1912. 2. Nationalism—Macedonia—History. 3. Macedonian question. 4. Macedonia—Ethnic relations. 5. Ethnic conflict— Macedonia—History. 6. Political violence—Macedonia—History. I. Title. DR2215.Y67 2013 949.76′01—dc23 2013021661 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Paperback printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Josh Contents Acknowledgments ix Note on Transliteration xiii Introduction 1 1.
    [Show full text]
  • European Commission
    COMMISSION EUROPEENNE Bruxelles, le 12 septembre 2014 CALENDRIER du 15 au 21 septembre 2014 (Susceptible de modifications en cours de semaine) Déplacements et visites Lundi 15 septembre European Parliament plenary session (15-18/9) Mr José Manuel Durão BARROSO receives Mr Beinigno AQUINO III, President of the Philippines Mr Siim KALLAS receives Mr Román ESCOLANO, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank Mr Jyrki KATAINEN in Portugal: meets with Mr Pedro PASSOS COELHO, Prime Minister of Portugal; speech on “European Banking Union in the making" at the Bank of Portugal Mr Andris PIEBALGS and Ms Kristalina GEORGIEVA participate in the High level EU coordination meeting "A European wide response to the Ebola epidemic" Ms Androulla VASSILIOU visits Cyprus: meets Mr Costas KADIS, Minister of Education and Culture; opens of the Centre of Visual Arts and Research, Nicosia Mr Algirdas ŠEMETA in Vilnius: delivers a keynote speech at the Investors Forum "Europe‘s Competitiveness Recipe" Mr Johannes HAHN in Vienna: gives a key note speech at the conference organized by the Austrian Chamber of Economy: "EU structural funds in the period 2014-2020" with the participation of Mr Reinhold MITTERLEHNER, Minister of Economy Ms Connie HEDEGAARD in Copenhagen (Denmark): intervention at the Conference on Green Mobility in the future Mr László ANDOR delivers key note speech at the session "Integration of People with an Intellectual Disability - Policy-making perspective" at the Scientific Symposium of the 2014 Special Olympics European Summer Games (Antwerp)
    [Show full text]
  • DILEMMAS and ORIENTATIONS of GREEK POLICY in MACEDONIA: 1878-1886 by Evangelos Kofos
    DILEMMAS AND ORIENTATIONS OF GREEK POLICY IN MACEDONIA: 1878-1886 by Evangelos Kofos The period between 1878 and 1886, covers the critical years from the Congress of Berlin to the annexation of Eastern Rumelia by Bulgaria, when Greek policy on the Macedonian Question was undergoing a general reappraisal. Balkan historiography tends to view this policy in terms of its adverse effects on the national movements of the other Balkan nationalities; it is understandable. Now, with the aid of hitherto untapped archival material—mostly from the Archives of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs (AYE) this paper will attempt to examine how Greek policy was formulated, what its aims were and how it was carried out. Prior to the 70’s, the Greeks viewed Macedonia as one of the Ottoman regions which would form part of an enlarged Greek state. The realization of this aspiration was rather a remote one as other regions, closer to the Greek Kingdom—such as Thessaly, Epirus, and of course Crete—had first priority. To support their claim, the Greeks argued on a number of points. Historically, they sought to trace the region’s hellenic ties all the way back to antiquity and Alexander the Great. Ethnologically, they identified the nationality of the inhabitants on the basis of their Church affiliation; and this meant the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Politically, they felt they could move into a vacuum, once the Empire collapsed. Serbia was a small and far away state, while Bulgaria did not even exist an the political map of the Balkans. With such reasoning in the 40’s, 50’s, and even the 60’s, the Greeks of Athens were betraying an ignorance of basic facts about the situation in Macedonia, and the Balkans as a whole.
    [Show full text]