Yesterday Crvenkovski opened the Macedonian embassy in China.
"The Republic of Greece is not the sole preoccupation of Macedonia," he said, adding Macedonia is a part of Europe and is aware that Europe, and particularly the European Union, is experiencing problems with one of its member countries which is violating basic behavior standards.
Stressing that Macedonia is ready to sit at the negotiating table, Ismail pointed to the need for a sufficiently dignified formula, especially considering the aspect of the overcautious Greek policy over the last 4-5 years. Asked whether Macedonia prefers the "small" or "large" negotiating package, Ismail answered, "we are for talks which will exclude both the embargo and any negotiating on the name."
"There is no secret agreement," government spokesman Evangelos Venizelos said, denying that Greece's permanent representative at the UN, Christos Zacharakis, had had any discussions on "what is being referred to as a secret trade agreement".
Venizelos attributed the report to either "incorrect information" or to the "misinterpretation" by the correspondent of "things that have been stated publicly". It is possible, he added, that the corespondent misinterpreted Greece's position that it would be prepared to lift the trade embargo against Skopje if the latter made some concrete move which showed good will.
Meanwhile, "Greece hopes that there will soon be some result and some progress in the Skopje issue," Foreign Ministry spokesman Constantine Bikas told a press briefing when asked if there was still optimism towards a settlement of the problem as recently expressed by Foreign Minister Karolos Papoulias.
Bikas said the mediation efforts were continuing and denied there was any "secret diplomacy" going on.
Replying to another question, Bikas reiterated that "the Greek retortion measures will be lifted when Skopje gives specific examples of good will, but this is nothing new."
The visit, she said, created an opportunity to reaffirm friendly relations between Italy and Macedonia, to verify cooperation perspectives and to confirm Italy's interest in seeing Macedonia consolidated.
At a press-conference yesterday, the Association's Coordinating Committee reported on activities undertaken so far and of cooperation with the ministry in announcing its recent steps. The Association and the ministry, it was said, are concluding draft-agreements for the determination of technical criteria for broadcasting, discussing at the same time temporary solutions to be in effect until the law is adopted. They agreed to issue temporary licenses (within 30 days) to radio and TV stations currently meeting technical requirements and to work together with the ministry in preparing the part of the law referring to private radio and TV stations. Meanwhile stations ordered to cease broadcasting are to await the decisions on their appeals which will be considered as urgent. A team of 20 lawyers has been engaged in initiating a procedure to abolish the Law on Communication which was developed back in the days of the former Yugoslavia. The initiative will include a demand for Government evaluation of losses of the state caused by the lack of regulations in the public broadcasting system.
Representatives of the Democratic and Liberal parties reacted by demanding that the official Macedonian language is respected. Soon afterwards, they walked out of the seminar, criticizing the organizers for favoring the Albanian language in the seminar papers.
The organizers themselves said that such small things could bring about incidents and promising to dissociate from such behavior.
The seminar will end today.
The National Bank of Macedonia reduced its discount interest rate to 18 per cent.
Dissatisfied with the decision of "Makedonija-sports" and the Privatization Agency, the managerial team of "Orka sports", led by Ilija Kamcev and the General Manager Jordan Kamcev, stated a series of remarks and arguments for irregularities in making the final decision on the ownership transformation of "Makedonija-sports". At the very beginning Ilija Kamcev said the conference had no political connotations but only economic ones. We were upset by the irregularities in privatizing "Makedonija-sports" even before its board of directors decided as it did. We do not demand any privileges for ourselves, all we want is to see a just choice for the privatization model or partner. Despite the fact that we were given a very shot period of only 15 days following the public announcement, we still came up with a quality program, prepared by experts who know their job, to compete as a potential partner in the privatization of this company. We were also denied access to documents and data necessary for the program, but we were still able to prepare a program as I had been involved in all events in "Makedonija-sports" ever since its foundation.
We were invited to the presentation of the offers - our company and another foreign firm with owners of Macedonian origin being the only two bidders. This foreign company is only 3-4 years old and has a total of 2 or 3 employees.
Although the offers were open to public view, we were not allowed to look at their offer. I offered my program to the competing firm and asked for theirs in return. However, the manager who chaired the entire session and had the complete documentation with him let no one look at the documents.
Even our insisting to the Agency director Ljubomir Shukarov to see their program proved to be vain. Until yesterday, when "Nova Makedonija" and "Vecher" published their program, we had no idea what kind of a program the foreign company had offered to make it the winner.
Regardless of all this, we submitted a complaint to the Government Privatization Commission , as we also had information on other irregularities in the entire matter, Kamcev says, explaining that the board session at which the decision was made occurred in the absence of the board president and was led by the general manager of "Makedonija- sports". Moreover, he says, the board president has still (!!) not seen the documents, while those who decided are far from being able to comprehend or even to read what the documents say. "Makedonija-sports" summoned its employees to a session and manipulated them into voting for the German company's offer. They simply agitated, which we were not allowed to do, and afterwards said that 95 per cent of the employees voted in favor of the German option. According to Ilija Kamcev, even the current law granting employees the right to vote on state capital is not a happy one, but things are what they are.
The Privatization Agency was also bitterly criticized, since, as Kamcev claims, it has made many errors, purposefully or not. "Orka sports" contacted all sides, including Richard Draves, a foreign expert engaged by the Agency, but met with unpleasant conversations and even a threat by Evgeni Zoografski, one of the Agency's directors.
That is why "Orka sports" submitted a complaint with the Commission and will seek the aid of foreign experts if necessary. Kamcev claims that the decision was made under a suggestion from the Agency's director, which makes it a political decision rather than an economic one. Therefore we will bring criminal charges against the director of "Makedonija-sports", the director of the Privatization Agency and the president of the Managing Board of "Makedonija-sports".
Then the director of "Orka sports" stated several arguments of his own about false data on the case, made public by the Agency, and including incorrect number of employees and development strategy. His company, he said, had offered DM 59 million, while the other company offered only DM 16 million and no development projection at all. He said the Agency kept emphasizing the 180 new jobs to be created by the German firm, not even mentioning the 280 new jobs offered by his company. "Westfra Trade", according to Jordan Kamcev, offered additional capital of only DM 425,000, average pay for employees of DM 500, with a gross turnover of DM 3.2 million and a planned revenue of DM 4 million.
"Orka sports", on the other hand, offered a climatization investment of DM 200,000 ("Westfra Trade" offered DM 780,000), buy-out of all free shares within a year, a plan to invest DM 3.9 million to purchase sporting goods (an additional and irretrievable investment), as well as an additional DM 2.3 million for revitalization of "Makedonija- sports".
In the end they presented the way in which the two offers were appraised. "Orka sports" was given 100 points on all criteria - employment, investment and prices - except on its development strategy, and gained a total of 85.90 per cent. "Westfra Trade", however, only by the points obtained for the development strategy came to 88.14 per cent and won the contest.
At the very end "Orka sports" managers read the statement by the board president of "Makedonija-sports", who dissociated himself from the decision as he thought the offer of "Orka sports" was the more favorable one.
Unofficial sources close to the Government inform that the complaint by "Orka sports" has already been received by the Commission, but that it will not be discussed by it because the Government must determine what agency is authorized to decide upon the case.
In regard to accusations stated against the Privatization Agency of irregularities in deciding on the best offer for privatization of "Makedonija-sports", Agency officials said the authority goes only as far as to approve, or not, a ready made decision by a company under privatization. Yet, in order to make things perfectly clear, they say, the Agency introduced a practice of quantifying the criteria and more easily reach a definite standpoint. In this context, the Agency approved the decision of "Makedonija-sports" to accept the offer made by "Westfra Trade", as it complies with the law. This means that the main activity of "Makedonija-sports", which is production, will continue, and that the tender complies with the legal requirement of an additional investment of 15 per cent of the company's appraised value and sets a development plan for future production and exports of sporting goods. The key factor for the Agency to approve the decision was that the offer presented by "Orka sports", in fact, suggested merging the two companies instead of an additional investment. The announced new employment, in this case, would only be a transfer of the current employees to "Orka sports", which means only 66 new jobs would be open (through the Employment Agency), while "Westfra Trade" offered 270 completely new jobs.
The Agency's answer to the argument presented by Jordan Kamcev that his company's foreign currency effect is larger, was that the effect comes mainly from trading operations, whereas "Makedonija-sports" entered the privatization process as a production company which, according to the agency, is in the interest of the state. Furthermore, "Orka sports" offered investment in objects and fixed assets, while the other competitor offered cash finances of DM 426,000.