The new Prime Minister of Greece, George Papandreou, and his Macedonian counterpart, Nikola Gruevski, will meet, on 27 November, to try to work out a solution to the question of the name of Macedonia. The aim is to avoid deadlocking by Athens, at the General Affairs Council on 7 December, which will discuss the opening of EU membership negotiations with Skopje. The European Commission recommended in mid-October the start-up of talks with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), noting that “the country meets sufficiently the political criteria set by the Copenhagen European Council in 1993”. Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, speaking at the European Parliament on 25 November, called on the two countries to seize this opportunity to settle once and for all the name issue that has been poisoning their relations.

Greece has prevented the international recognition of Macedonia under this name since 1991, arguing that it belongs exclusively to the Greek national heritage. Two years after its independence, in 1993, Macedonia was admitted to the UN under the temporary name of FYROM. The issue of the name has since been the subject of negotiations under UN auspices. In April 2008, Athens blocked Skopje’s admission to NATO and threatened to do the same for its membership of the EU, although Macedonia has had applicant status since December 2005.

In the wake of the Socialist victory in the Greek elections, on 4 October, Skopje has repeated its calls for the resumption of talks on this political-semantic dispute. The Commission is of the view that this changeover in political power has had a “positive” effect on efforts to resolve the imbroglio.

ICELAND

On the other hand, it is not yet clear whether the General Affairs Council will also be able to debate the opening of membership talks with Iceland. The Commission will have to issue its opinion on Iceland’s candidacy by then to make debate possible. “Work is continuing,” note Commission sources, who recognise that “time is short”. “I think the European Council in December will define the new stages of Iceland’s accession process,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt told the European Parliament.

On 22 October, Iceland turned in its responses to the 2,500 questions raised by the Commission. These 2,600 pages of answers cover the 33 negotiation chapters between the EU and a candidate country. Since Iceland already applies three-quarters of EU legislation due to its EFTA and Schengen membership, the Commission needs much less time than usual to issue its opinion. The government of Iceland therefore hopes to be able to start negotiating in the first half of 2010.