GRUEVSKI: 'NAME' SILENCE ECHOES 'NAZI' ERA
National.
The European Union's silence over Greece' veto to Macedonia’s NATO membership bid echoes the complacency of Europe to the agressive policies of Nazi Germany before World War Two, Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski told local media.
Speaking to local media on Sunday, Gruevki referred to Athens blocking Skopje’s NATO invitation in April over the 17-year old dispute over Macedonia's name, which the country shares with a northern Greek province.
“The silence over these kinds of blockades and vetoes reminds us of other times, when Czechoslovakia was annexed, when no European country gathered enough courage to firmly stand in the way of the then Nazi movement that turned into a monster afterwards," Gruevski said in the capital Skopje.
"Today’s Greek conduct in the EU can become a rule for bad behaviour.”
Athens has indicated it will veto both NATO and European Union entry for Macedonia until the row is resolved, which in practice means asking Macedonia to pick a new name approved by its southern neighbour .
UN-led negotiations between Athens and Skopje have been held since Macedonia broke away from socialist Yugoslavia in 1991, but without success.
At the end of 2008 Skopje said it will sue Athens at the International Court of Justice in the Hague over the dispute, arguing that Greece previously signed a UN document agreeing to let Macedonia into international institutions under its provisional name Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia, and had broken that deal when it blocked the country's NATO entry
[Makfax]
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