Macedonia - Republic of Macedonia

Macedonia - Republic of Macedonia

The Republic of Macedonia) is an independent state on the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. It is commonly referred to as Macedonia, but this can cause confusion with the wider geographical region of Macedonia. Due to a dispute between the governments of the Republic of Macedonia and Greece, the United Nations referred to the country as the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) when it became a member state in 1993. The UN, other international organisations, and some individual countries still use that designation, but most countries now recognise the Republic under its constitutional name for bilateral diplomatic relations.

The lands governed by the Republic of Macedonia were previously the southernmost part of Yugoslavia. Its current borders were fixed shortly after World War II when socialist Yugoslavia established the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, recognising the Macedonians as a separate nation within Yugoslavia. Renamed as the Republic of Macedonia in 1991 it seceded peacefully from Yugoslavia without any further territorial changes. However, since then the country has been embroiled in a prolonged political dispute with Greece concerning its use of the name "Macedonia". Nonetheless, this situation has not prevented the two countries engaging in military and security co-operation, cross-border investments and cultural exchanges.

History of the Republic of Macedonia

The lands governed by the Republic of Macedonia were part of a number of ancient states and former empires; Paionia, the kingdom of ancient Macedon (which gave its name to the whole Macedonian region), the Roman and Byzantine empires, and the medieval Bulgarian and Serbian states. In the 14th century the region was conquered by the Ottoman Empire.

Following the two Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the wider region of Macedonia was divided between Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia. The territory of the present-day Republic of Macedonia was then known as Južna Srbija, "Southern Serbia", but had no separate or autonomous identity at the time. After the First World War Serbia joined the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In 1929, the kingdom was officially renamed Yugoslavia and divided into provinces called "banovinas" or banates. Southern Serbia became a part of Banate of Vardar (Vardarska Banovina).

In 1941, Yugoslavia was occupied by the Axis Powers and the Banate of Vardar was divided between its neighbours, Bulgaria and Italian-occupied Albania. Harsh rule by the occupying forces encouraged many Macedonians to support the Communist Partisan resistance movement of Josip Broz Tito. After the end of the Second World War, when Tito became Yugoslavia's president, the People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was established. The People's Republic of Macedonia became one of the six republics of the Yugoslav federation. Following the federation's renaming to Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1963, the People's Republic of Macedonia was likewise renamed as the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. It dropped the "Socialist" from its name in 1991 when it peacefully seceded from Yugoslavia.

The Republic of Macedonia remained at peace through the Yugoslav wars of the early 1990s but was destabilised by the Kosovo War in 1999, when an estimated 360,000 ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo took refuge in the country. They returned quickly following the war but soon after, Albanian radicals on both sides of the border took up arms in pursuit of autonomy or independence for the Albanian-populated areas of the Republic. A short war was fought between government and ethnic Albanian rebels, mostly in the north and west of the country, in March-June 2001. It ended with the intervention of a NATO ceasefire monitoring force and the government promising to devolve greater political power and cultural recognition to the Albanian minority.

Politics of the Republic of Macedonia

The Republic of Macedonia is a parliamentary democracy with an executive government composed of a coalition of parties from the unicameral legislature, and an independent judicial branch with a constitutional court. The role of the President of the Republic is mostly ceremonial, with the real power resting in the hands of the President of the Government of Macedonia.

With the passage of a new law and elections held in 2005, local government functions are divided between 78 municipalities (opštini, singular - opština). The capital, Skopje, is governed as a group of ten municipalities collectively referred to as "the City of Skopje".

The country's main political divergence is between the largely ethnically-based political parties representing the country's Macedonian majority and Albanian minority. The issue of the power balance between the two communities led to a brief war in 2001, following which a power-sharing agreement was reached. In August 2004, the Republic's parliament passed legislation redrawing local boundaries and giving greater local autonomy to ethnic Albanians in areas where they predominate.

Foreign relations of the Republic of Macedonia

The Republic of Macedonia (with the designation Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) is a member of a number of international organisations such as the United Nations and Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is seeking to join NATO and the European Union, although its accession to either is unlikely to occur before 2008 and 2012, respectively. In December 2005, the leaders of the EU formally named it as a candidate country but did not set a date for starting entry talks.

The Republic of Macedonia, since its independence in 1991, has been embroiled in a dispute with Greece and Bulgaria over the country's official name, national symbols, and constitution. One of Greece's northern regions and Bulgaria's western regions areas also called Macedonia; overall, many Greeks object to the Republic using the name "Macedonia" for its constitutional name, and many Bulgarians object to its using the term "Macedonian" in reference to its language because they view it as a Bulgarian dialect.

The UN admitted the Republic of Macedonia in 1993 under the temporary name of "the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (FYROM), to be used until such time as a permanent name is agreed. Many international organisations adopted the same convention, including the European Union, the European Broadcasting Union, NATO, and the International Olympic Committee, among others. A majority of UN member states recognise the country as the "Republic of Macedonia", including three of the UN Security Council's five permanent members – the United States, Russia, and the People's Republic of China. Given that both names are rather long-winded, the Republic is often simply called Macedonia by non-Greeks and "Skopja" by Greeks.

The dispute over the Republic's national symbols and constitution was resolved in an agreement reached between the Republic and Greece in 1995, but no solution has yet been reached on the naming issue. Athens has also accepted for the Republic to include the term "Macedonia / Makedonja" but only if it is accompanied by a qualitative that distinguishes it from the Greek province of Macedonia. Skopje is holding on to its constitutional name.

Geography of the Republic of Macedonia

Map of the Republic of MacedoniaThe Republic of Macedonia encompasses only a part of the wider geographical region of Macedonia. The remainder is divided between neighbouring Greece (with about half of the total), Bulgaria (with under a tenth) and Albania.

The terrain is mostly rugged, located between the Šar and Rhodope mountains around the valley of the Vardar river. Three large lakes - Lake Ohrid, Lake Prespa and Lake Doiran - lie on the southern borders of the Republic, bisected by the frontiers with Albania and Greece.

The region is seismically active and has been the site of destructive earthquakes in the past, most recently in 1963 when Skopje was heavily damaged by a major earthquake.

The Republic's biggest city by far is Skopje, the capital, with an estimated 600,000 inhabitants. After Skopje, the largest cities are Bitola, Kumanovo, Prilep, and Tetovo, with populations ranging from about 50,000 to 120,000 people.

Economy of the Republic of Macedonia

The Republic was the poorest republic of the former Yugoslavia (and the next poorest federal entity after the autonomous region of Kosovo), producing only 5% of the total federal output of goods and services. It suffered severe economic difficulties after independence, when the Yugoslav internal market collapsed and subsidies from Belgrade ended. In addition, it faced many of the same problems faced by other former socialist East European countries during the transition to a market economy.

The outbreak of the Yugoslav wars and the imposition of sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro caused great damage to the Republic's economy, with Serbia constituting 60% of its markets prior to the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Matters worsened when Greece imposed a trade embargo on the Republic between 1994-1995. Some relief was afforded by the end of the Bosnian war in November 1995 and the lifting of the Greek embargo, but the Kosovo War of 1999 and the 2001 Albanian crisis caused further destabilisation.

The Macedonian economy has since made a sluggish recovery, though the extent of unemployment, the gray market, corruption and a relatively feeble legal system continue to cause significant problems and a low growth rate. The Republic still has one of he lowest per capita GDPs in Europe.

Demographics of the Republic of Macedonia

The Republic of Macedonia is an ethnically diverse country. About 64% of its population - some 1.3 million people - belong to the Macedonian ethnicity, people of dominantly Slavic origin; their ethnic identity is disputed in name by Greece and in affiliation by Bulgaria. Of the remainder, the Albanians constitute the single largest minority group, numbering about 25% of the population; they are concentrated mostly in the western and northwestern part of the country. Smaller minorities include Turks (78,000 or 3.9%), Roma (54,000 or 2.7%) and Serbs (36,000 or 1.8%). Several other minorities also exist, including Vlachs, Bosniaks, Macedonian Muslims, Croats, Egyptians, Bulgarians, Greeks and several others, but they account for less than 3% of the population of the country. The Macedonian national census registers all the ethnic groups, but the smaller groups are not separately enumerated in the final report of the census.

Languages

A wide variety of languages are spoken in the Republic of Macedonia, reflecting its ethnic diversity. Macedonian, a south Slavic language most closely related to the Bulgarian language, is the most widely spoken, while other languages – including Albanian, Turkish, Serbian, Aromanian, Greek, Romany and Megleno-Romanian – are spoken roughly in proportion with their associated ethnic groups.

Although Macedonian is the country's official national language, in municipalities where at least 20% of the population is from other ethnic minorities their individual languages are used for official purposes in local government. The languages of the minorities, for example the Albanian language, can also be used in the national parliament and other national level institutions.

Religion

The majority of the population are members of the Macedonian Orthodox Church (52.4%). Muslims comprise 29% of the population and other Christian denominations comprise 0.2%. The remainder are recorded as "unspecified" in the 2002 national census. Most Albanians are Muslims, as are a small percentage of the country's Slavic population, known as Macedonian Muslims.

See Timor -Leste for East Timor
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Macau - Macau Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (diplomatically known as Macau, China)
Macedonia - Republic of Macedonia (referred to by UN and a number of countries and international organizations as The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia)
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Zambia - Republic of Zambia
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