Macedonia News

A mere 19.5% of internet users in Macedonia have shopped online in the past 12 months, show data of the State Statistical Office and Eurostat. 59% of the users have never ordered something online, whereas 18% said they have never done it because they don't have the right skills.
The data were unveiled Thursday by the newly established Macedonian E-Commerce Association, which is preparing a comprehensive analysis on e-commerce in Macedonia.
Nina Angelovska, Grouper.mk CEO and chairwoman of the Association, said that the lack of digital skills and the small number of online companies on the market was the reason behind the insignificant percentage of online shopping in the country.
578 websites for online shopping were active in 2017, which are mainly focused on retail, services and tourism.
"We need a better offer. We need to give them a good reason to shop online and to raise public's awareness," Angelovska stated.
In comparison, 74% in Macedonia use the Internet, w…

Exhibit "Restoration of Painting in Church 'St.Gjorgji' in Kurbinovo - Masterpiece of Byzantine Art in Macedonia" will open in the Museum of the City of Skopje on Wednesday.
The exhibit presents the results of project "Macedonian Frescoes - Masko 360", implemented by association "Makedonida", in cooperation with the Faculty of Christian Archaeology and Byzantine Art History within the Goettingen University, and supported by the German Max Planck Society and Macedonia's Office for Cultural Heritage Protection.
The photos were taken in the spring of 2016, when the conservation works of the 12.-century Kurbinovo-based church were launched.
After Skopje, the exhibit will travel to Munich for a presentation at the Ludwig Maximilian University on May 7.

The leader of the Greek government's junior coalition partner says his party will not accept any solution in a name dispute with neighboring Macedonia that includes any derivative of the term "Macedonia."
Panos Kammenos, who is Greece's defense minister, said in a television interview Tuesday his right-wing Independent Greeks party will "prevent in any way the use of the term 'Macedonia'" in the neighboring country's name.
The two countries have disagreed for a quarter-century over the former Yugoslav republic's name, with Greece claiming its neighbor harbors territorial aspirations on the northern Greek province of the same name.
Athens and Skopje have intensified talks on the issue, and Greece's left-led government proposals have reportedly included derivatives of 'Macedonia.' A refusal by Kammenos' party to back the deal could threaten the government's stability.

Macedonia, as a long time candidate country for EU membership, follows the EU’s policy, and their decisions made by consensus at the EU level. However, even at the EU level there are numerous member countries who often disagree and do not follow dictates by Brussels.
Since the decisions to expel Russian diplomats do not represent an expression of harmonized views of all EU member states, but it is about individual decisions of individual member states, the President of the Republic of Macedonia believes that the decision of the Macedonian MFA is hasty, wrong and rushed.
The President of Macedonia calls for restraint from hasty steps in foreign policy, in order to prevent possible damage to the achievements of the strategic goals of the Republic of Macedonia.
How was the Russian diplomat kicked out? Cowardly of course, this is Macedonia. While the Russian Ambassador was opening an Art exhibit in Ohrid, MoFA boss and quisling Nikola Dimitrov saw an opening to kick out the Russian diplo…

In Macedonia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to expel a Russian diplomat regarding the “Skripal” case, while in Moscow, the “Days of a Macedonian Winter” event took place at the huge complex “Food City”.
At the event, which will last until tomorrow, five Macedonian companies are taking part.
“Ajvar is expected to cause the most interest, along with other Macedonian products such as cottage cheese with peppers, gherkins, gambi, sweet and chilli lutenica and pekmez made from various fruits which are abundant in Macedonia. Contact with Russian importers will help Macedonian processors plan the upcoming yearly purchase of fresh agricultural products and processing quantities, and at the same time it opens the door for a greater presence of other Macedonian producers”, stated the Macedonian- Russian Chamber of Commerce on their official website.
Yesterday, Macedonian businessmen visited several major trading markets in the capital of the Russian Federation, in order to get famili…

National aviation institutions are prepared to meet the obligations that Macedonia and other members of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) have undertaken under the Carbon offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).
There are over 300,000 annual flights over Macedonia and the amount of carbon emissions is the topic of Monday's workshop in Skopje, organized by ICAO and the Civil Aviation Agency (CAA).
Over 100 representatives from the aviation field in Europe are trained how to draft emission reports that are forwarded to ICAO.
CAA director Goran Jandreoski said the formula to establish the carbon emissions is complex, since it incorporates both civil and military aviation.
"There are over 300,000 annual flights over Macedonia and the aircraft types are familiar. Airlines will have an enormous challenge of achieving a certain target set by the industry. They will have to work on the improvement of their fleets, thus opening the room …

It was love at first sight of a racket.
“He watched tennis instead of playing with toys,” Sasho Jankulovski said through a translator about his son’s early childhood.
Miami Hurricanes freshman Bojan Jankulovski was very different than the average kid growing up in Selo Gluvo, a modest village on the outskirts of Macedonia’s capital, Skopje.
Before he could envision himself serving a tennis ball on the clay at the Stade Roland-Garros courts, where he played in the Junior French Open, he could recite the capital city of every European country by the age of 3.
But it wasn’t his impressive memory that would take him on a lifetime of adventures in fewer than 18 years. It was his passion in between the white chalk lines and what he could do with a neon Babolat racket gripped in his dominant left hand.
Like many kids, Jankulovski, the oldest of two sons, grew up playing sports. His parents signed him up for soccer, and he was placed as the last line of defense in goal because of his tall an…

Qatar Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani yesterday met with the Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister of the Republic of Macedonia, Oliver Spasovski, and the accompanying delegation, on the occasion of their visit to the country.
During the meeting, they reviewed relations of cooperation between the two countries and ways of developing and strengthening them, especially in the security fields, in addition to a number of regional and international issues of common concern. After that, the Prime Minister and Interior Minister 
H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani witnessed the signing of a Letter of Intent for security cooperation between the Ministry of the Interior of the State of Qatar and the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Macedonia. 
SOURCE LINK

The Managing Director of the Rating Agency Nikola Spasov and the Minister without Portfolio in the SDSM government Edmond Ademi were part of the Cambridge Analytica network, which has been accused of improperly using information from more than 50 million Facebook accounts for political purposes, a study published on the Medium by journalist Wendy Siegelman shows.
According to the network, the two Macedonian citizens were hired by the Machiavelli Strategies company, which was part of the Cambridge Analytica network, which exploited personal data.
Authorities in Britain, as well as the U.S., are investigating Cambridge Analytica over allegations the firm improperly obtained data from millions of Facebook users. Scrutiny of Cambridge Analytica is growing as top officials from the firm claimed credit for President Donald Trump’s stunning 2016 victory. The only contributors in the Balkans to this company accused of illegally trying to influence election processes are Rating’s Nikola Spaso…

Macedonia's gross electricity production fell by an annual 29.4% to 510,025 MWh in January, preliminary data from the national statistical office showed on Monday.
Net electricity output decreased 29.3% year-on-year to 480,193 MWh in January, Makstat said in a statement.
Thermal power plants contributed the largest portion of gross domestic electricity production, generating 266,838 MWh, 27.3% less than in January 2017.
Combined heat and power plants followed with 116,144 MWh in the first month of the year, down by 31.8% compared to same month of 2017.
Hydro power plants generated 113,409 MWh, down 33.1% on the year.
Electricity generated by wind parks decreased by 34.7% year-on-year to 7,355 MWh, while biogas plants’ output increased 42.1% to 5,066 MWh. Solar parks produced 1,213 MWh of electricity, up 60.9% on the year.
Macedonia’s electricity imports rose by an annual 7.1% to 258,400 MWh in January, while electricity exports shrank to 4,917 MWh from 49,653 MWh last year.
Distr…

Macedonia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) issued a press release Monday saying it has decided to expel one Russian diplomat over the poisoning of Russian ex-spy in the UK.
‘The Ministry of Foreign Affairs after close consultations with our EU, NATO allies, partners and in a gesture of solidarity with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has decided to expel one Russian diplomat over the Skripal case in line with the Article 9 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961,’ MoFA said in a press release.
Illegal use of a chemical weapons  violates the international law and affects on the security of all countries, the press release reads.
The United States and its European allies are expelling dozens of Russian diplomats in a co-ordinated response to the poisoning of a former Russian spy in the UK, the BBC reported. It is said to be the largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history. Twenty-one countries have aligned with th…

The Tirana-based association of the community of Macedonians in Albania has urged official Tirana to recognize the constitutional name of the Republic of Macedonia.
"On behalf of all Macedonians living in Albania, we have submitted a request on the recognition of the constitutional name of our motherland to President Ilir Meta, PM Edi Rama, Parliament Speaker Gramoz Ruci, and to the leaders of the opposition parties," the organization's president Nikola Gjurgjaj told MIA.
"The recognition of the Republic of Macedonia under its constitutional name will positively affect the solid bilateral relations. The two countries have had a series of meetings, which has laid a foundation to expand and enhance our cooperation in several areas on matters of mutual interest," reads the request.
Macedonia's constitutional name has been recognized by 133 countries, including the US, Russia and China.
Several years after recognizing Macedonia under the acronym FYROM, Albania…

10,000 pizzerias in 2,000 cities in the United States receive orders via a call center based in Macedonia. Namely, Slice is located in the southwestern towns of Debar and Ohrid, where 300 employees support 10,000-20,000 clients a day in the United States.
Slice is an investment of Ilir Selja, a Debar-born businessman who has been living and working in the US for two decades.
"It is one of the most important investments that has been yielding positive results in cutting down the unemployment rate, especially among young people, which in turn decreases emigration," stated Debar Mayor Ruzdi Ljata who presented Selja with a plaque of appreciation for his contribution to reducing youth unemployment.
Selja said that through the platform, all American clients can order pizza on the website, which is supported 24/7 by the company's staff in Debar and Ohrid. He said that at least 100 jobs would be created by the end of the year to meet high demand.

71.7% and 74.5% of the citizens in Greece say they do not approve a name solution that would include the term Macedonia, show results of two different opinion polls published in the newspapers Kathimerini and Proto Thema.
The Greek Institute for Research and Analysis 'Dianeosis' between January 16 and February 5 conducted a survey with one of the many questions referring to the name issue.
Reporting on the findings, Kathimerini wrote on Sunday that 71.7% of the Greeks interviewed for the survey said that their country should not accept a compound name with the term Macedonia in it. 24.5% said they had no issue with a compound name.
The second poll, commissioned by Proto Thema, included the question 'Should the government accept the term Macedonia in the new name of Skopje or not?'
74.5% responded 'no', 21.8% said it should, whereas the remaining 3.7% said they didn't know or refused to answer the question.
Commenting on the findings, Proto Thema wrote that…

The census of national population is planned to take place in 2020, State Statistical Office Director Apostol Simovski says in an interview with BIRN.
Simoski says he will not succumb to any pressure regarding the operation, especially political one, as the census should provide information not only of the ethnic structure of a country, but also of its overall development.
‘Presidential and parliamentary elections are to be held in Macedonia in 2019 and 2021 respectively, so we have decided to schedule the census for 2020 – a year that should be free of political turbulences,’ Simovski says.
About EUR 8,5 million should be allocated for the census, says Simovski, who considers that the question on ‘ethnic origin’ should be excluded from the operation’s questionnaire, as it is the case in many other countries.
He considers that the 2011 unsuccessful census, if not scraped, would have offered an unrealistic number of about three million citizens.
It was a political census, run by a pol…

Zoran Zaev met with Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias, who is currently on a two-day official visit to Macedonia.
Zaev said that this meeting coincides with an extremely positive moment in time, where long-lasting solutions for bilateral issues in the region are expected in the perspective of the European Union’s expectations.
“The focus of our talks must be the future between the two countries. We need to be decisive, and take steps that will lead us closer to a solution of the only open issue between our two nations. I am convinced that this approach will lead to a solution that will give plenty of acceptable views to the institutions in both countries, as well as the opposition, who will accept it as a dignified solution, both for the Republic of Macedonia and for the Republic of Greece”, said Prime Minister Zaev.
He stressed that during the process, both countries practice and nurture common European values, which is a shared way of building better bilateral relationships and …

President Gjorge Ivanov remains on the already stated position on the Law on the Use of Languages and the signing of the decree for its promulgation, the President’s office confirmed for MIA.3
After the repeated vote on the bill on March 14, Ivanov in an address to the public said that he would not sign the decree for its promulgation saying that the Constitution and his conscience did not allow him to.
The Law on the Use of Languages was passed Wednesday in Parliament in a tense atmosphere by 64 votes in favor and none against or in abstention. The MPs did not debate any amendments to the bill. Twentyfour deputies from non-majority communities voted for the law.
The law, which had been first passed on January 11, was sent back to Parliament after Ivanov refused to sign it.

The New York Times Gevgelija
From the time he was a high school student and made his first discovery — graves dating to the Iron Age and coins 3,000 years old — Emil Slamkov said he wanted to be an archaeologist.
“For me, it is a chance to discover what the earth is hiding,” he said. “And then to try and find a way to bring it back to life and give meaning to what came before.”
In the Balkans, however, giving meaning to the past can be a fraught business.
In recent years, Mr. Slamkov, 52, has found his skills in demand as the government has poured money into excavating ancient sites with a single goal: finding connections to ancient Macedonia to add legitimacy to its claim on the name.
It is not an academic question. For more than two decades, this country of just two million people has been fighting with its southern neighbor Greece over the right to have Macedonia in its name.
Now the issue has come to the fore again, as Macedonia’s government earnestly renews a push to join NATO a…

The National Conservation Centre received Thursday technical equipment from the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), a donation comprised of 26 PCs, a plotter, seven printers and a back-up server.
Culture Minister Robert Alagjozovski attended the event, saying it is a proof of the excellent cooperation and support from TIKA and Turkey in general, especially in the protection of cultural heritage.
"We believe this donation will enhance the capacities of the National Conservation Centre. We expect this strategic partnership with TIKA to continue. This donation is very significant because we have inherited many problems and it is sometimes difficult to determine which is the most urgent procurement," said Alagjozovski.
National Conservation Centre director Memet Selmani thanked TIKA for the donation, saying it would strengthen the institution's capacities.
"TIKA is our long-standing partner and supporter of numerous projects in the field of conservation…

The Macedonian premiere of Milcho Manchevski's fifth feature film, Bikini Moon, will take place Thursday evening at Skopje's Millenium movie theater.
Bikini Moon had its world premiere at the São Paulo International Film Festival in Brazil, and US audiences first saw it during the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, California.
The first European screening of Manchevski's fifth film was at the 38. Fantasporto International Film Festival in Portugal, where it won the Jury's Special Award.
The movie was shown at the Sofia International Film Festival on Monday, and before that at the Belgrade FEST. Screenings are to follow at film festivals in Sarasota, Florida; Istanbul, Turkey; Frankfurt, Germany; Nashville, Tennessee, and at the Manhattan Film Festival in New York.
Structured as a film within a film, the US-German co-production is a dark modern fairy tale depicting a fractured ideal of family. It is set in a world of privacy lost by the constant intrusion of cameras,…

Macedonians working abroad sent a record 1.3 billion euros back home last year, at least six times more than the country attracted in foreign investment.


Private money transfers from Macedonians working abroad reached 1.366 billion euros in 2010, latest data from the Central Bank show.
This is some 230 million euros more than in 2009 and 380 million euros more than in 2008.
By comparison, Macedonia attracted only 222 million euros in Foreign Direct Investment, FDI, in 2010.
Most money comes from Macedonian communities in Australia, Canada, Switzerland and Italy, the data show. Macedonians employed in Afghanistan and Dubai are also contributing significantly to the total sum.
Local economic experts say the value of private money transfers is probably larger than data suggest, as some is sent in cash form and not registered by the authorities.
Experts note that private transfers of this kind make up some 20 per cent of the country’s GDP, feeding the country with fresh money and defendi…

Macedonia has extended the visa-free stay privilege for citizens of Russia for one year, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in the message.
According to the statement, the Macedonian Foreign Ministry said that on March 13, 2018 the Macedonian government decided to cancel visa requirements for Russian citizens on short-term trips to Macedonia for another year.
As before, it is enough for Russian citizens to have a valid foreign passport and insurance to enter Macedonia. "This procedure applies only to short-term trips - a period of up to 90 days within six months from the day of the first entry," the ministry said.
The practice of visa-free entry of Russians to Macedonia is extended until March 15, 2019.

Three-and-a-half years after archaeologists brought to light an ancient macedonian tomb dating to the era of Alexander the Great near Amphipolis in northern Greece, work related to the mysterious burial site appears to have come to a standstill. 
In 2015 the greek conservative government earmarked 236,000 euros for a two-year anthropological study, but the contract expired last summer before any action was taken, greek paper Kathimerini reports.
The study was to have involved an analysis of some 1,000 bone fragments found in the broader Amphipolis area. Scientists were then to try to match them to the five skeletons discovered inside the 4th century BC tomb. Experts have so far only conducted a macroscopic survey of the skeletal material found inside the grave.
The suspension of the archaeological study has raised questions about the leftist-led government’s policy toward the monument.
It is not known when or even if the analysis will ever take place. The bone remains are currently s…

The United States continues to support ongoing United Nations-led talks on the Macedonia name issue and urges its Parliament to focus on the needed reforms, says the US Department of State.
In a statement to MIA ahead of Thursday's visit to Skopje of the Greek Foreign Minister, a Department of State spokesperson said the US supports also the resolution of this long-standing disagreement as soon as possible.
"We hope that the leaders of Macedonia and Greece will find a mutually agreeable solution to the name dispute as soon as possible in the interest of Euro-Atlantic integration, economic prosperity, peace, and security in the region," reads the statement.
The statement of the US administration comes ahead of a meeting of the foreign ministers of Macedonia and Greece, Nikola Dimitrov and Nikos Kotzias, scheduled on March 30 in Vienna with UN name envoy Matthew Nimetz. The meeting is considered yet another attempt to harmonize positions aimed at finding a mutually accept…

Macedonia imports fewer cars with each coming year.
The Customs Administration shows that 2,615 fewer cars were registered last year than in 2016, and a drastic 31,033 fewer than in 2010 when the preferential import of used cars was allowed.
Used cars still make for the largest number of cars imported, but their number has been decreasing significantly year by year. When comparing 2017 and 2016, there were 2,925 fewer used cars imported last year and 419 more new cars.
The downward trend is a result of both diminished interest and the low living standard.
Used car importers say that people are buying fewer cars, and the cars that are most sought after are those with prices below EUR 3,000.
"In uncertain times, people don't want to spend much," used car dealers say.
Opel Corsa and Volkswagen Polo cars are sold the most. The price for a Volkswagen Golf 5ranges from EUR 4,200 to 4,500 depending on the year of manufacture. A 2007 Opel Corsa goes for around EUR 3,100, and a …