Valeri - no disagreement here.

I think that the EU is the only way for our neighborhood, given the traditional obstinacy we all tend to display on occasions.

The EU IS the best thing since sliced bread and I think even in the land of the Euro - skeptics, the UK, they have benefited from its advent immensely.
The whole peace process with Northern Ireland has much more to do with the EU and the envy of Belfast for the new found, EU inspired, prosperity of Dublin, than all the US "peace envoys" put together.

The same EU motivation and the carrot of mobility and affluence, will fix our issues in the Balkans as it's already started in BG.
I don't ever hear younger Bulgarians talk ethnic talk.
They are all busy trying to make some money, and many are out and about Europe on the weekends, since it takes next to nothing to fly these days, and they have Bulgarian friends they can stay with all over the place.

There's nothing better than for your young to be open to the world - the FYROM-tsi should think about that before making asses of themselves on forums and such...

So do Romanians too (re passports), and so even do the British, within their usual over-complex set of rules.

Slovene mountain-walkers (which includes about half the nation !) in the Julian Alps have a three-way national mountain-walker ID card that is equally valid in Slovenia, Austria, or Italy. So, once again, SOME former Jugoslavs can bridge the gap with the outside world quite comfortably.

Meanwhile, can I quote the
"declining conjugation" verb:

> I am a patriot
> You (sing.) are a nationalist
> He is a racist
> She is a racist bigot
> We are fascists
> You (pl.) are freedom-fighters
> They are fighting a civil war.

A lot to be said for a 'common European Consciousness' that transcends nationalism......

Epami,
sure we can.
I actually think that most in FYROM have had enough of that ethnic crap and are ready to join us in the EU, but there's that very vocal minority that keeps shooting their mouths off enough to motivate the Greeks to block them from having a better future.

BG has supported FYROM all the way in every endeavor, but I think that's even more frightening to their insecure identities, than if we were to sabotage them like the Greeks do.
You heard the man - we grant anyone there with Bulgarian grandparents a Bulgarian Passport, so they can travel and prosper throughout Europe, and they accuse us of taking advantage of them - never mind that this is a common European practice. We do the same with Bassarabian Bulgarians, Ukrainian and any and all.

The Germans do the same.
They give German passports to any one who can prove German ancestry from Poland to Romania to Ukraine.

Hell - the Italians do the same with folks all the way from Brazil, who can prove Italian lineage.

But in former Yugoslavia, that's automatically a crime.

I don't see any great difficulty with Macedonia sharing a language with the rather larger entity of Bulgaria - it's just like Belgium (the southern bit) sharing a language with the larger entity of France, or Belgium (the northern bit) sharing a language with the Netherlands.

OK, there are minor differences between Belgian (Wallonie) and French French, notably some of the numbers, some common expressions, and certainly the accent. The same differences exist between Belgian Flanders and Netherlands / "Hollands", but they are less well known internationally. There is an acute difference in accent between Flemish / Vlaams and 'Hollands', and quite a difference in local vocabulary, although there is a common academic standard called "ABN" (Algemene Beschaft Nederlands) to which everybody theoretically subscribes.

Could not Macedonia and Bulgaria adopt something like this model ? It has worked well in Belgium, and the Swiss have something similar.

Epami,
my best (school) friend in BG is a Makedonian Bulgarian and he is the most vocal Bulgarian patriot too.
I've actually argued with him too, but in a country where everyone seems to feel as if the fellow next to them ate their cake all day, and blame the country for their problems without seeing anything wrong with themselves, I am not one to discourage patriotism too much.

Thats right Epaminondas, I live in Goce Delchev and that is in Regional Macedonia. But we are Bulgarian Macedonians. This area has never known any other language other than Bulgarian and when my cousin comes he'll speak his variation of it. While he works in Skopje they can call it Macedonian but as soon as he's here he knows we all understand him and as usual he'll moan and groan in the beginning until my mother (his aunt) tells him remember that this was the language your father my brother first spoke to you when you were a child. He usually shuts up after that so good choice by Skopje.

Aldiraman Aliti would have been a Bulgarian national without any Macedonian relatives - his name indicates his membership of Bulgaria's ethnic Turkish minority (who have, by the way, complete equality-of-opportunity within Bulgaria, and some of whose members fill very senior Government positions. Unlike in Greece...)

Vasilevski, in contrast, might have rather more in the way of local Macedonian connections....rather as Vasil claims.

It is good that my cousin is coming home again. The last time we seen each other was in Ohrid where we drank til the morning. The only problem with Aleks is he thinks he is the real veliki so when he's drunk he commands everyone around. In some of the Bulgarian bars in Ohrid the owners told me to tell Aleks to keep it down, just because he's a friend of the Gruev(ski) fascist government does not mean he can act like a real Pig. When he comes home for dinner I'll tell him to be a bit more polite to our Bulgarians in Ohrid.

I wish a Happy Ilinden to all our Bulgarian People.............

I meant "insolent behavior", not indolent, but indolent may work too as it includes "slothful employee" in the definitions;)

Persona non grata?
Wow!
Poor Makedonians. Even the people who worked so hard to change their self-identity, have issues with them.

Interesting that they didn't act the same way with the ambassadors of all the other countries which recognized Kosovo. Could it be because they still feel masters of Makedonia and deem the Makedonian assertion, indolent behavior?