Croatia and Albania Invited to Join NATO, Macedonia Still Waiting

[GMantis]

Frankly, I think the EU and NATO should both kick out Greece and invite Macedonia.  The reason the Greeks suspect everybody else has designs on their territory is a guilty conscience for having designs on everybody else's territory.

In this case it's Macedonia's own fault - they actually have territorial pretension on all their neighbors and this is supported by their propaganda: see here. What is shameful is that Bulgaria didn't join the Greek veto, but supported the membership of a country which has territorial demands against Bulgaria.
And the Greek suspicions towards Albania and Turkey are more or less true as well.

[GMantis]

Fantastic; the quicker we can join Eastern Europe into NATO and other such alliances, the better.

Why?

[GMantis]

Frankly, I think the EU and NATO should both kick out Greece and invite Macedonia.  The reason the Greeks suspect everybody else has designs on their territory is a guilty conscience for having designs on everybody else's territory.

In this case it's Macedonia's own fault - they actually have territorial pretension on all their neighbors and this is supported by their propaganda: see here. What is shameful is that Bulgaria didn't join the Greek veto, but supported the membership of a country which has territorial demands against Bulgaria.
And the Greek suspicions towards Albania and Turkey are more or less true as well.

Some sort of source to those claims, please. I personnally am not aware that the Macedonian government holds official territorial claims against its nabours.

They are not stating it outright, but there are plenty of indications that they desire to acquire these territories: their support of separatist groups, their education curriculum, the subtle almost constant anti-Bulgarian propaganda and so on.

Frankly, I think the EU and NATO should both kick out Greece and invite Macedonia.  The reason the Greeks suspect everybody else has designs on their territory is a guilty conscience for having designs on everybody else's territory.

In this case it's Macedonia's own fault - they actually have territorial pretension on all their neighbors and this is supported by their propaganda: see here. What is shameful is that Bulgaria didn't join the Greek veto, but supported the membership of a country which has territorial demands against Bulgaria.
And the Greek suspicions towards Albania and Turkey are more or less true as well.

Some sort of source to those claims, please. I personnally am not aware that the Macedonian government holds official territorial claims against its nabours.

I looked and couldn't find anything.  It seems they (Macedonia) has very good relations with Bulgaria.  Not so much with Greece because the Greeks think the name Macedonia is a Greek thing and shouldn't be used for a foreign nation.

Oh yes, we have very good relations with them. This is mainly because  most Bulgarians feel the Macedonians to be misguided and confused Bulgarians and therefore are willing to extend a great amount of goodwill. This means ignoring most of their provocations and this is why they are not widely known - Greece is after all not the only victims of historical falsification.

[GMantis]

Greece is annoying with their Macedonia claims. They held a huge protest in Ottawa when Canada recognized the FYROM.

The fact that the Greeks have gone overboard is undeniable (and they also bear a large amount of guilt for this issue), but the Macedonians have also been intransigent.

[GMantis]

Greece is annoying with their Macedonia claims. They held a huge protest in Ottawa when Canada recognized the FYROM.

The fact that the Greeks have gone overboard is undeniable (and they also bear a large amount of guilt for this issue), but the Macedonians have also been intransigent.

Intransigent to what, renaming themselves? That's an absurd demand from Greece, not any fault of Macedonia. The blame for the dispute falls wholly and completely on Greece in this one.

There is also the question of their national flag and their appropriation of Greece's history. I'm not claiming that they're not oversensitive on the issue, but considering Macedonia's other huge problems, they could be a bit more accommodating.

[GMantis]

I spent 4 months in Skopje, Macedonia and in a nutshell, let me explain the problem, which some of you are overlooking and is actually quite simple:

The people who now occupy the country known as Macedonia are Slavs, they speak a Slavic language.  They stupidly claim Alexander the Great was one of them, they put his name and the 16-pointed sun on their national flag when in fact he was a Greek, not a Slav.  The Greeks get pissed because they feel they're being robbed of one of their national heroes.

Imagine Mexicans claiming that George Washington was, in fact, a Mexican and they rename Chihuahah "Texas" and say they are the true Texans.   Sounds silly, right?  Almost trivial?   But combine that with talks that the southwest belongs to mexico, coupled with the immigration problem, and these stupid little trivial things turn into hotbed issues over time.

A very accurate explanation. Greece would probably more accommodating to Macedonia, even under their current name, if there weren't those other issues.

[GMantis]

Alexander has never been on their flag, and they quite obligingly removed the Vergina sun from their flag over a decade ago.

The new flag looks very much like a zoomed up version of the previous one.

[GMantis]

... Southern Serbs?

That's what the Serbs tried to make them between the World Wars. Didn't work very well.

Western Bulgarians...

That's how they called themselves before 1944 (without the "western" part, of course) until Macedonia was taken over by communist Yugoslavia, which was generally smarter than pre-war Yugoslavia. In this year, Macedonian was introduced as ethnicity and forced upon the population and it has been rather successful.
Of course, it would be even worse for the Greeks if the Macedonians started calling themselves Bulgarians.

[GMantis]

That's how they called themselves before 1944 (without the "western" part, of course)

Actually, it would be more correct to say that that's how Bulgarians called them before 1944 You could argue that there wasn't a political entity named Macedonia, or that there wasn't a codified Macedonian literary standard (both of which are true), but it is unquestionable that quite a few people used to call themselves "Macedonian" long before 1944. VMRO wasn't named that in 1944 either

VMRO called for the liberation of the Bulgarians in Macedonia. Not to mention that they were initially called the VMORO - Inner Macedonian Adrianople Revolutionary Organization. Not to mention that a significant amount of support - financial and personnel came from Bulgaria. Not to mention that Macedonians was a regional name - in the same way people in Bulgaria call themselves Thracians or Dobrogeans. Not to mention that the leaders of VMRO decided to downplay their desire for eventual reunification to prevent the great resistance this would have caused from the Great powers. Not to mention... but I think this will be enough.

[GMantis]

Fantastic; the quicker we can join Eastern Europe into NATO and other such alliances, the better.

Why?

I know right.

What good is there in taking in the most ass-backwards country in all of Europe (Albania)?

It's the United States' most loyal ally in Europe. It is inexplicable, however why European countries are going along with it.

[GMantis]

After the Second World War the Soviet Union occupied those countries as a buffer zone against the U.S. Now, they have to watch as these countries, one-by-one, continue to join NATO. A bit of an irony, no?

In fact the Soviet Union never occupied Albania and Croatia, nor were they for most of the period Soviet satellites.