Macedonia

Macedonia is a landlocked country in southeastern Europe, to the north of Greece, with a population of two million and capital city of Skopje. The country resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, the other countries from the breakup being Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Slovenia, and Croatia.

In 2005, European leaders agreed that the country should be a candidate for membership to the European Union. In 2006, NATO said that the country can expect to be invited to join NATO in 2008.

Media
The BBC says of the country's media:


 * The constitution guarantees freedom of speech and access to information. State television, which has three national channels, faces competition from private networks.


 * Some journalists reacted to the 2001 uprising by ethnic Albanian guerrillas by using what Radio Free Europe described as less-than-responsible language and words of outright hate. But the media reported fairly responsibly overall, according to the OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] representative on media freedom.

Leaders

 * Branko Crvenkovski, President, a former centre-left prime minister and leader of the Social Democratic Union
 * Nikola Gruevski, Prime minister, leader of the centre-right VMRO-DPMNE

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Coalition of the willing

External articles

 * Oana Lungescu, "EU warns Macedonia over entry", BBC, February 9, 2007.

External resources

 * Timeline: Macedonia, BBC, accessed March 2008.