Page 11 - bne_newspaper_September_14_2018

Southeast Europe
September 14, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 11
Macedonian government urges citizens to back name deal as referendum approaches
Valentina Dimitrievska in Skopje
Macedonia officially launched the campaign for its referendum on the name deal with Greece on September 10. The critical vote is scheduled for the end of this month.
On September 30, citizens will be asked to vote on whether they are for Nato and EU membership by accepting the name deal with Greece. Under the agreement, Macedonia will be renamed North Macedonia, a move that will unblock its EU and Nato integration processes.
Recently the government decided the parliament would receive MKD80mn (€1.3mn) for political parties to use for campaigning for the referen- dum, whether they plan to campaign for a yes or a no in the plebiscite.
71 of 120 MPs, mainly from the governing parties, agreed to be involved in the campaign. In addi- tion to the political parties, the EU office in Skopje is also campaigning with video spots and bill- boards. The campaign will end on September 27, three days before the vote.
According to a recent poll released by the Inter- national Republican Institute (IRI) on August 29, the majority of Macedonian citizens support the country’s bids to join the EU and Nato.
A combined 57% of those polled were in favour of resolving the name dispute with Greece, with 37% of them saying they “completely support” the deal, while “somewhat support" was picked by 20%, IRI said.
The main opposition party VMRO-DPMNE is against the deal, but stopped short of urging its supporters to boycott the referendum, which could have caused turnout to drop below the 50% threshold for the vote to be valid. Instead, VMRO- DPMNE said people should make up their own minds ahead of the referendum.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of the Western leaders who visited Macedonia last week, called on people in Macedonia on Septem- ber 8 to accept the name deal with Greece in the upcoming referendum as a chance for the coun- try to join Nato and to launch EU accession talks.
US Senator Ron Johnson was the latest Western official who visited Macedonia. On September 10 he met Prime Minister Zoran Zaev to reiterate the US support for Nato membership.
At the end of August, the OSCE Office for Demo- cratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) for- mally opened the referendum observation mission in Macedonia where it will deploy 270 observers.