Author: GREEK WORLD MEDIA

The foreign minsiters of Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania held a meeting in a trilateral format as the representatives of the three major Balkan EU member states. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria does not have a problem with Macedonia and its aspirations for EU membership but with the nationalist rhetoric of some of its political leaders, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov declared at a trilateral meeting with his Greek and Romanian counterparts.

Mladenov hosted in Sofia Monday Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos and Romanian Foreign Minister Titus Corlatean for a mini-summit of Balkans‘ three major EU member states, Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania.

Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania have thus set out to “speak with one voice” in the European Union, their foreign ministers made it clear at their trilateral meeting.

In addition to Mladenov, the Foreign Ministers of Greece and Romania have also made it clear that Macedonia needs to prove its good-neighborliness before it can be allowed to join the European Union.

In their words, Macedonia‘s EU path needs to rest on a resolution of its “name dispute” with Greece – which has been blocking Macedonia‘s NATO and EU integration since the former Yugoslav republic is claiming a name that is also borne by an administrative district in Northern Greece – as well as on the Macedonian leaders’ ability to do away with their nationalist rhetoric and verbal assaults on Bulgaria.

Bulgaria’s President Rosen Plevneliev recently told EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele that Macedonia is not ready for EU accession talks.

Plevneliev thus in effect reiterated the position of Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov who recently made it clear that Bulgaria does not support Macedonia‘s EU entry unconditionally.

Earlier, in a special statement in August 2012, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov reacted strongly to hate speech against Bulgaria in Macedonia media.

Since the early Middle Ages, all the way to the first half of the 20th century, Macedonia and its Slavic population were considered part of the Bulgarian nation not just by Bulgaria but also by its neighbors and the international community. This is why from its National Liberation in 1878 till 1944 Bulgaria waged five wars attempting to unite all of the Bulgarian-populated lands in the Balkans, including Macedonia – after the San Stefano Treaty of March 1878 providing one state for almost all Bulgarian-populated regions was revised three months later by the European Great Powers in the Treaty of Berlin leaving the regions of Thrace and Macedonia out of Bulgaria.

After both World War I and World War II, however, Serbia/Yugoslavia kept control of 40% of the territory of the geographic and historical region of Macedonia, the so called Vardar Macedonia (which in 1991 became the Republic of Macedonia), Greece retained about 50% of the region – the so called Aegean Macedonia, while only 10% of the region – the so called Pirin Macedonia – remained in Bulgaria.

The foundations of the contemporary Macedonian nation were laid in 1943-44 by Yugoslavia‘s  communists at a special congress that also proclaimed the creation of a Macedonian language and a Macedonian alphabet designed to differentiate the dialects spoken in the region of Macedonia from the Bulgarian language and to underline the creation of a distinct Macedonian national identity.

The so called question about the perceived Macedonian minority in Bulgaria exists since the late 1940s when the dictators of the Soviet Union and communist Yugoslavia – Joseph Stalin and Josip Broz Tito – attempted to arrange the post-World War II order on the Balkans through the creation of a Balkan federation between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.

One of the provisions of this state engineering project of the two notorious communist dictators was the creation of a Macedonian republic within the future federation. For that to happen, the leadership of communist Bulgaria had to cede Pirin Macedonia to Yugoslavia in exchange for the territories of the so called Western Outlands (the towns of Tsaribrod (Dimitrovgrad) and Bosilegrad where the recognized Bulgarian minority in Serbia lives today).

This provision was accepted unconditionally by the Bulgarian communist leader Georgi Dimitrov who acted under direct orders from Stalin. As a result, in the late 1940s, the Bulgarian Communist Party undertook an unprecedented campaign to force its own population in the Pirin Region (today’s Blagoevgrad District in Southwest Bulgaria) to change its Bulgarian nationality and identity into the newly invented Macedonian one, and the official census figures out of the blue recorded that 250 000 Macedonians living in Bulgaria.

The campaign to force the people of the Blagoevgrad District to become “Macedonians” was dropped by the Bulgarian Communist Party after the entire project for a Balkan federation between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia was killed with the falling out between Stalin and Tito in 1948-49 – a rift that had wide repercussions for Europe during the entire Cold War period. This left the population of Southwest Bulgaria – which was harassed by its own government on orders from Moscow – to shake off the imagined ethnic Macedonian identity imposed on it.

Ever since, however, the authorities in Skopje whose legitimacy relies primarily on the doctrine described by the Bulgarian historians as “macedonianism”, i.e. the distinct national identity of the Slavic population of the region of Macedonia, have resurfaced claims of “hundreds of thousands of ethnic Macedonians” living in Bulgaria under some sort of “brutal oppression.” Macedonian media cite as evidence for such claims statements by the so called ethnic Macedonian party “OMO Ilinden-Pirin”, whose members according to publications in the Bulgarian media are paid from Skopje and Belgrade to declare themselves as “Macedonians.”

The provocations in the Macedonian media on the “question” of “ethnic Macedonians” abroad seem to be in line with last year’s construction of monuments in Skopje of Alexander the Great and the medieval Bulgarian Tsar Samuil, both of which are deemed to be great Macedonians by the government of Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and his party VMRO-DPMNE – a move that caused anger in Greece, ridicule in Bulgaria, and criticism by the European Commission.

Some 50 000 Macedonians have granted Bulgarian citizenship in the past decade, and that the figure has seen a staggering increase in the past couple of years, as many Macedonians are, in the worlds of Bulgarian historian, ex Diaspora Minister and current head of the National History Museum, Bozhidar Dimitrov, returning to their “Bulgarian roots.”

As of 2010, it is much easier for Macedonians to get Bulgarian citizenship because the Bulgarian authorities no longer ask them to provide a document of Bulgarian origin – which is usually some sort of a church or municipal certificate from the time of their grandparents; instead, for the purposes of granting citizenship, the Bulgarian state has switched to assuming that all Macedonians are of Bulgarian origin.

Unlike Greece, which gets enraged by FYROM‘s moves toying with the cultural heritage from the Antiquity period and is tangled with Macedonia in the notorious name dispute, Bulgaria’s governments traditionally react to propaganda fits by Skopje with disregard, while the general public in Bulgaria accepts them with ridicule. To the extent that Bulgaria has made any claims towards Macedonia, those have boiled down to the refusal to allow Skopje to hijack Bulgaria’s historical heritage from the Middle Ages and the 19th century Revival Period.

Bulgaria was the first sovereign nation to recognize the independence of the Republic of Macedonia in 1992.

Source: Thedp

Members believe that balancing multiple chapters is ‘not a simple task’

Not all of Penn’s Greek organizations call campus home.

Six of the 14 fraternities and sororities within Penn’s Multicultural Greek Council are citywide organizations. These MGC chapters include members from multiple schools within the Philadelphia area, including Drexel and Villanova universities.

College senior and Penn MGC President Jacqueline Baron believes citywide fraternities and sororities are a positive thing for Penn students.

“Being part of a citywide organization is a great way to get off Penn’s campus and explore,” Baron said.

She added that, apart from meeting for chapter at least once a month, these organizations also hold workshops and host community service activities together.

Alpha Kappa Alpha sister and Drexel student Chantee Steele echoed Baron’s sentiments.

“Citywide organizations are very different than fraternities and sororities concentrated on one campus,” Steele said. “I think of it as a good thing. Our organizations have diversity of thought coming from different institutional backgrounds.”

According to Drexel MGC President Zicky Villette, the Greek bond is just as strong in citywide organizations as it is in sororities and fraternities on a single campus.

“We’re close because we’re forced to spend time together,” he said jokingly. “In any fraternity, you have your brothers and that will not change.”

While being part of a citywide fraternity or sorority lends itself to a unique experience for students, it does tend to cause problems that campus organizations do not face.

For example, coordinating meetings and keeping in touch with brothers and sisters is not always easy.

“Because we only have two people in the chapter with cars, and both of those people are at Drexel, we have a hard time commuting,” Steele said. “Paying for gas and traveling is difficult.”

Villette agreed that balancing multiple schools is not a simple task.

“Coordination is difficult because of the way our schedule works,” Villette said. “Our semesters are different. We have 10-week quarters instead of semesters.”

Although some of the citywide organizations include as many as five different schools, Baron said Penn is the “hub” of MGC activity in the area.

“Penn has the resources that most of the other schools don’t,” she said. “We have the rooms needed to accommodate our meetings and events. Penn also has a lot of great networking opportunities.”

In addition, Steele believes that Penn “understands the MGC culture” more than other schools do.

Villette added, “Penn has the best quality of MGC organizations and they spend the most time on MGC events.”

However, the inclusion of citywide chapters within Penn’s MGC gives it a smaller presence on campus than the Panhellenic and Interfraternity councils, Baron said.

“[Citywide MGC chapters] can’t have houses because their members are spread all over,” she added. “And all of their members aren’t on campus so we don’t always seem as big as we are.”

“Being part of a citywide organization is all about how you decide to deal with it,” Villette said. “Some things are different … Everything else — the brotherhood — is the same.”

Eurozone finance ministers have discussed how to bring Greece back from the brink after a report showed that easing the terms of its debt bailout could cost almost another €33 billion ($A40 billion).

Greece, in urgent need of aid to remain afloat, has not been able to keep up with the terms of its second debt rescue as the economy has tanked, undercutting efforts to meet tough debt and deficit targets.

The only option now seems to be to give Athens more time and easier terms but that comes at a cost which is rising fast as the economic outlook darkens.

“A financing gap over the program has emerged due to lower privatisation proceeds, slower growth and concomitant lower revenues, and a longer horizon for correcting the excessive [public] deficit,” a draft report prepared by Greece’s international creditors said.

Greece’s “troika” of creditors – the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank – had expected Athens would need €6 billion in additional funding to 2014 if the bailout was extended by two years.

But now they estimate Athens will need €15 billion instead to cover 2013-2014 and €17.6 billionfor 2015-16, up from the anticipated €14.1 billion euros, according to the report.

Ministers are relying on the long-delayed report to assess Athens’ efforts to meet its targets and decide whether to release its next aid tranche of some €31 billion.

The report said it would be “prudent to assume that markets may remain sceptical about Greece for a longer period, given the vulnerability resulting from the high debt ratio and political risks”.

In other words, Greece would have to rely on its creditors for longer.

Athens has ‘delivered’

Earlier, Jean-Claude Juncker, who heads the Eurogroup of finance ministers, said the troika report was positive overall and concluded that Athens had “delivered” on its reform pledges.

Mr Juncker said ministers finally got the report on Sunday and it “is positive in its fundamental tone because the Greeks really delivered. Now it is for us to deliver”.

In the run-up to the meeting, officials made plain that no final decisions were expected, with perhaps another gathering needed before Greece can get its aid payment.

Time is pressing however. Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has said his country will be broke by Friday if it does not get the aid and while officials have played down that possibility, it is clear a decision is needed soon.

“We need to find creative solutions,” Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter said as she went into the meeting while IMF head Christine Lagarde called for a “real fix, not a quick fix”.

Mr Juncker, who is Luxembourg’s prime minister, said a new austerity package adopted by the Greek parliament last week and a cost-cutting 2013 budget agreed late on Sunday were “very ambitious” and “fulfills our wish list nearly completely”.

But there would be “no definitive decision” today, he added.

Merkel booed

As discontent mounts over austerity across Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the leading proponent of belt-tightening as the answer to the euro debt crisis, was booed during a visit to Portugal.

Her trip coincided with the latest review of Lisbon’s €78billion international bailout program, extended on condition the country make vast budget savings to plug a mounting public deficit.

“The program is being applied by Portugal in an excellent manner. It is a great exploit,” Dr Merkel said at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho.

“My visit is a chance to get to know the country better and to bring hope. I sense a great determination to overcome a difficult situation,” she said.

“Of course a program of its kind sparks major debate. It is a long and hard process and I know it requires many sacrifices,” she added.

The eurozone finance ministers’ meeting is expected to last well into the night, followed by a similar gathering of all 27 EU states expected to focus on how to boost the slumping economy and the bloc’s hotly contested 2014-20 budget.