Regarding ‘Cameron rallies troops for budget battle‘:

UK Prime Minister David Cameron said last July that he would strongly support Turkey’s EU membership. But today I have my doubts.

The EU membership of Turkey is possible towards 2016-2020 on the condition that the next budget of the EU for 2014-2020 foresees some funds for Turkey. But Cameron seems to be suggesting the opposite. I quote: “UK Prime Minister David Cameron came to a two-day EU summit which concludes today (17 December) with plans to build an alliance in favour of capping the European Union’s multi-annual budget for the post-2014 period.”

And I quote this too: “Reportedly, Cameron is insisting that the long-term EU budget must be frozen at 2013 levels and only increased according to the rate of inflation. Cameron has apparently secured the support of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and some other leaders.”

I trusted Mr Cameron. But now I feel betrayed. It’s a very strange alliance. How can he support Turkey’s EU membership with such behaviour? Not to mention in an ‘alliance’ with Sarkozy and Merkel?

I believed in David Cameron, but he turned out not to be sincere at all. I can no longer see how he is strongly supporting Turkey.

Best regards,

Cem

Regarding ‘France blocks Romania, Bulgaria’s Schengen bids‘:

We would like to bring the following facts to your attention:

1. Romania recognises the border with Republic of Moldova as it was inherited from the USSR. The Treaty for Managing the Border (as it is correctly named) recently signed between Romania and the Republic of Moldova does not change the present juridical situation but brings further measures for better management of the common border.

The treaty was the result of a requirement from the Moldovan government, even if it was later criticised by the Moldovan president on procedural grounds. However, President Ghimpu retracted his declarations and the treaty is expected to be ratified.

The infighting in the Republic of Moldova does not involve Romania and does not change the fact that Romania recognised the border. By signing the treaty for managing the border, Romania simply reconfirmed its position. To speak of a ‘border dispute’ between Romania and the Republic of Moldova, as the French government did according to EurActiv, is outrageous.

2. The existence of a Treaty between Republic of Moldova and Romania was not a precondition for Schengen accession. The connection between the aforementioned Treaty and Schengen accession was only made as a new pretext for demanding ‘new tasks’ from Romania.

3. Romania publicly supported Moldova’s EU accession ambitions and its actions were always related to the same objective: to bring the Republic of Moldova closer to the EU. One cannot deny that this is a legitimate objective for two countries sharing deep historical links. Nevertheless, this does not mean that Bucharest has subversive plans towards the Republic of Moldova. As such, we consider the hysterical behaviour of the French authorities to be shameful.

4. On Romania’s initiative, a group of EU member states was set up to support Moldova’s European aspirations – initially called the Friends of Moldova group but currently named the ‘Group for the European Action of the Republic of Moldova’. One may be surprised to learn that France is a founding member of this group. However, Paris has radically changed its position in recent months and obstructed discussions to grant the Republic of Moldova a visa liberalisation perspective in the Council, severely undermining the efforts of the pro-EU government coalition in Moldova.

5. Without any legal grounds, France has gone a step further and linked Romania’s accession to the Schengen Area to the Republic of Moldova. This offensive attitude comes in a context in which Paris has already linked Romania’s accession to the issue of Roma integration, making Bucharest pay for the reckless anti-Roma measures of the French authorities.

6. The British and French media wrote that Romania is giving EU citizenship to millions of Moldovans. This is simply false. This year the authorities granted Romanian citizenship to less than 70,000 Moldovans (which is anyway less than the number of citizenships granted by France to non-EU immigrants).

One cannot simply ignore the fact that we are speaking about families in the Republic of Moldova who lost their rights after the USSR’s occupation here. Romania does not automatically grant citizenship to Moldovans. In fact, we could say that this procedure is rather restrictive as the decision is made on strong individual grounds – and only for those who prove that they belong to a family who had Romanian citizenship before 1944.

Our think-tank was and still is critical of the Romanian authorities (including concerning the Schengen accession criteria, as EurActiv correctly reported), but France and other EU member states should note the difference between real shortcomings and pure speculation.

Cristian Ghinea

Director

Romanian Centre for European Policies (CRPE)

Regarding ‘Summit sees Sarkozy, Barroso clash in bitter Roma row‘:

As a convinced European, I appreciate the recent concerns over the handling by France of the situation of Roma citizens, all the more so because I am also Romanian of origin.

However, I am also a person who lived for a limited period of time in close proximity to Roma communities. As such I also witnessed the great challenges any government would have in adequately integrating Roma communities.

I believe a lot more can be done on the part of countries of origin to understand the Roma culture and find better ways to provide them with equal opportunities.

But I also believe that there is a flip side to the same coin: the willingness of the Roma communities to conform with the norms of modern society. And it is this side of the coin that I do not see discussed much in the media or elsewhere. I believe it will benefit us all if the matter is presented in a balanced way.

Regarding ‘Bosnians hope to travel visa-free to EU by autumn‘:

The governments of the Republic of Croatia, Montenegro and Macedonia have adopted a decision to temporarily facilitate the entry of aliens on tourist visits into their countries on the basis of valid Schengen residence permits and visas.

Now that Bosnians hope to travel visa-free to the EU, they should follow the same footsteps above in order to increase tourism from non-EU countries.

Hassaan Ahmed

Private citizen

Regarding ‘Serbia, Croatia to stop ‘looking back at the past‘:

The problems between Serbs and Croats do not just date back to Croatia’s secession from Yugoslavia in 1991. They go back much further to World War II, when Croatia was a willing – nay, eager and enthusiastic – satellite state of Nazi Germany with its own ‘SS’ called the Ustashe, who butchered at least 700,000 Serbs, Gypsies and Jews, mostly Serbs, at Jasenovac Concentration Camp in Croatia. Jasenovac comes third in line for the highest number of killings in a concentration camp during that war, yet it is rarely even mentioned in western schools.

Under Tito, Croatia got a free pass for those unimaginably horrific crimes, including for their WWII policy of dealing with the Serbs who lived in Croatia: kill a third, expel a third and convert a third to Catholicism. In 1991, the many Serbs who had lived for generations in Croatia had nothing to look forward to after Croatia’s secession but open harassment, ill treatment, and likely death by butchery, from a now, again, independent Croatia that still harbours nostalgia for its Nazi past. THAT is why the war was brutal in Croatia in the 1990s – those who had been victimised by Croatia in WWII did not intend to become Croatia’s victims again.

Nevertheless, they did become victims, yet again, thanks to NATO/Clinton’s support for the pro-Nazi Croats and the propaganda against and betrayal of our WWII allies, the Serbs, who gave up countless lives to fight Fascism and who have throughout history been the main stalwart against Muslim expansion in Europe.

It isn’t the Serbs who should stop looking to the past. It’s the rest of us that should start looking to it in order to get an accurate understanding of the unfolding of history.

Anna Pullinger

Private citizen

Regarding ‘Serbia, Croatia to stop ‘looking back at the past‘:

To address these issues properly it is essential to delve into history prior to the 1990s. Surely you know that the real history of genocide goes back to 1940s Yugoslavia and WWII. That is when Christian Serbs, Jews and Gypsies were massacred simply for not being Roman Catholic Croats.

Hundreds of thousands of Serbs and tens of thousands of Jews and Gypsies were killed in what amounts to genocide. What happened in WWII is precisely why there was so much upheavel in the 1990s as Yugoslavia was torn apart. Again the Croats were ably assisted by their WWII allies Germany and the Vatican, while NATO and the USA obliged by taking care of a whole lot of dirty work.

Has Croatia ever apologised for the dirty deeds of its bloodthirsty forefathers? If not, I recommend that they take a good, hard look at their pathetic past. And apologise. And apologise. And apologise. Surely, their WWII victims deserve no less.

Liz Milano

Private citizen

Regarding ‘Macedonia name dispute inspires exotic idea‘:

As a European I would like to state that I am extremely disappointed with the current situation in the EU.

Europe is currently in a state of confusion. Corruption, a general lack of sensibility and nationalism is emerging in all EU countries, old and new, of course under the pretext of pluralism.

The main problem of Europe is that it has no specific agenda to frame all these different opinions and therefore its citizens have no dream to aspire to.

This lack of optimism, prevalent in all EU countries, has become more obvious to me since I live in the United States. I am lucky enough to do my PhD research in one of the most important universities of the world – the kind of institution that the EU lacks and where thought is produced as well as future goals and dreams – and sad enough to experience there, in the most indicative way, the decline of the thought of European intellectuals.

It was really breathtaking to realise that the majority of EU students in the United States – as opposed to students from India, Latin America, China or Turkey – have, to put it mildly, a lack of orientation in their studies without being able to position their research in a broader context.

I am not implying that Europe does not have brilliant minds. I am just expressing the opinion that this situation reflects in the clearest way the simple fact that there is no European context in which to use them.

It is in this context that I would like to put the FYROM-Greece dispute over the name ‘Macedonia’. Are the history and conflicts in the Balkans detached from the general policy of Western Europe in the area since the 19th century?

I will not try to inform your readers on the topic since on the one hand this is not my intention, and on the other it would be like trying to explain to someone the history of the Middle East in three paragraphs. What every open-minded reader knows, of course, is that the problem of the Middle East is not something that only involves fanatical Israelis and Palestinians. Things, I hope, are thought to be a bit more complicated than that.

Thus, I am of the opinion that “most Europeans find the Greek position puzzling or irrational” either because they do not even bother to inform themselves on the situation, or, as is the current trend, they just see it as an obstacle in their search for “new markets”. With this new idea of the EU as a supermarket in mind, who really cares about anything else?

Additionally, in addressing the irrationality of this conflict I would like to draw attention to a similar trend prevalent all over the EU. What about the current conflicts in Spain (thousands of Catalans were demonstrating a few days ago), in Ireland (three days of conflict in Belfast) or in Belgium (fear of separation of the country)?

Is this simultaneous indication of mistrust just a coincidence or does it reflect a general tread which indicates the general suspicion and instability between people that live in the EU?

Christina

Private citizen

Regarding ‘Macedonia name dispute inspires exotic idea‘ :

As has repeatedly been said, the Macedonia name dispute is a matter of culture and history. And yes, these factors determine the future trajectories of both the countries concerned.
The majority of FYROM’s population has nothing to do with Macedonian culture, which is Greek and reached its apex during the ancient Macedonian dynasty of Timenides, to which Philip B and Alexander the Great belong.

There is no Macedonian language, because we’re talking about the Greek language. The so-called ‘Macedonian’ language claimed by the FYROM people is a dialect of Bulgarian, using the Cyrillic alphabet and introduced to the Slav peoples by Greek scholars Cyril and Methodious from Thessaloniki during Byzantine times.

In turn, their accendants pay off for this major offer by acclaiming for theirs the possessions of their donors!!!
The newly-born state – a coincidence? – can be named after the capital city – Scopije- which is again a Greek name meaning ‘the place of the guard’, since that was the function of the place in Byzantine times, before becoming a city.

We continue to be generous enough to let other peoples live by exploiting the rich Greek language, since Greek names for cities are found in five continets across the globe. The Greeks are destined to offer themselves to humanity on the basis of mutual respect.

The FYROM people have to learn from this if they want to be accepted by the international community.

Anastasia

Greece

Regarding ‘Macedonia name dispute inspires exotic idea‘:

It is not true that “Macedonia is recognised as the country’s constitutional name by all EU countries except Greece”.

In addition, it states that “most Europeans find the Greek position puzzling or irrational”. It is impossible to know exactly what most Europeans think. No-one can read minds.

I would like to draw attention to past violent conflicts over this exact issue.

1. “The Department would appreciate any information pertinent to this subject which may come to your attention. Department of State”. (U.S State Department Foreign Relations Vol. VIII Washington D.C. Circular Airgram – 868.014/26 Dec. 1944) http:// tinyurl.com

2. “And whether bulgarian consciousness exists in Macedonia, this is a historical legacy. We’re now writing our history. We can’t write that until 1940 we were Bulgarians and after 1940 Macedonians.”

3. http://www.life.com/image/50774476; http://www.life.com/image/50774469; http://www.life.com/image/50774470.

4. Krste Crvenkovski (president of the Central Committee of the Union of Communists in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia) to Todor Zhivkov (First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bulgaria) – May 19, 1967. http://tinyurl.com/y2n846j

5. Many prominent IMRO members aligned with the Axis for the sake of “united Macedonia”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Mihail…
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohrana

 http://nationalpride.files.wordpress.com…

6. FYROM nationalists used to freely self-identify as ethnic Bulgarians a century ago.

FYROM national hero Krste Misirkov said: “We are Bulgarians, more Bulgarians than the Bulgarians in Bulgaria themselves [...] And, anyway, what sort of new Macedonian nation can this be when we and our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have always been called Bulgarians?”
 http://www.misirkov.org/kpm_zmr_eng.htm

7. “The creation of the ‘Macedonian’ nation, for almost half of a century, was done in a condition of single-party dictatorship. In those times, there was no difference between science and ideology, so the ‘Macedonian’ historiography, unopposed by anybody, comfortably performed a selection of the historic material from which the ‘Macedonian’ identity was created. There is nothing atypical here for the process of the creation of any modern nation, except when falsification from the type of substitution of the word ‘Bulgarian’ with the word ‘Macedonian’ were made.”
(Denko Maleski, Minister of Foreign Affairs of FYROM from 1991 to 1993 in an interview to FYROM newspaper Utrinski Vesnik; 16 October, 2006)

8. 19th century census data from the region.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic…

9. Conflicting ethnic narratives of FYROM politicians (today they portray themselves as direct descendants, thus implying that ‘Macedonia Greece’ is occupied. Ten years ago they claimed the opposite).

10. ‘We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great’ (FYROM Ambassador Ljubica Acevshka in speech to US representatives in Washington on 22 January, 1999).

11. ‘We are not related to the northern Greeks who produced leaders like Philip and Alexander the Great. We are a Slav people and our language is closely related to Bulgarian’ (FYROM Ambassador to Canada Gyordan Veselinov in an interview with Ottawa Citizen newspaper, 24 February 1999).

12. “We are Slavs who came to this area in the sixth century [...] We are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians” (Kiro Gligorov, FYROM’s first president, to Foreign Information Service Daily Report, Eastern Europe, 26 February 1992).

13. The ancient and modern region of Macedonia are not the same. FYROM is situated primarily in ancient Paoenia.
 http://macedonia-evidence.org/obama-lett…

14. What about the identity rights of Macedonians in Greece? What if FYROM nationalists claim to be “ethnic Athenians” next? Do Greeks have no identity rights?
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Maced…

15. What about the countless “united Macedonia” references being spread by FYROM nationalists?

Demitri

Private citizen

Regarding ‘Romania has EU’s deadliest roads, study reveals‘:

The article on Romania’s road seems correct. Last weekend, we hired a car and drove to Sighisoara, less than 100km from Sibiu, where we are volunteer pastors of an English-speaking congregation.

On Saturday, we drove an American-Romanian woman to her family’s home and saw one head-on crash, which happened on a curve.

Drivers here need to know that laws are not suggestions, and that overtaking and passing on a curve is wrong and stupid.

Pastors Michael and Jeri Lou Maus

Arvada

Colorado

USA