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In addition, Gruevski urged Athens to recognise the existence of the Macedonian minority on its territory and grant them the right to education in their own language as well as to foster their culture and traditions. 

Greece immediately reacted. In response to Gruevski's letter, Greek Foreigh Minister Dora Bakoyiannis said on Tuesday that the extreme nationalism from Skopje "sows the wind, but reaps whirlwind". 

Background:

EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday (19 June) will spend little time discussing enlargement of the bloc, and are not expected to do more than reaffirm western Balkan countries' "European perspective" – despite greater expectations from some of the EU hopefuls.

One such country – Macedonia, an EU candidate since 2005 – has lately been indicating its readiness to start accession negotiations as soon as possible.

Macedonia had had high expectations on starting accession negotiations during Ljubljana's time at the EU helm, as Slovenia – which was part of the former Yugoslavia together with Macedonia – has made the Western Balkans' EU integration a priority of its presidency.

Moreover, not winning the announcement of a date now means that Skopje may not start negotiations this year at all, as the next EU presidency country, France, has explicitly taken Greece's side in the name row, and is not expected to put a particular emphasis on enlargement issues.

With the two new policy areas - free movement of workers and social policy and employment - 20 of the 35 "chapters" have been opened with Croatia since the start of negotiations in October 2005. 

Speaking after the conference, Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Jandrokovic and Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel expressed hope that all chapters could be closed by the end of the year. "It's possible. I wish this possibility would become reality," said Rupel, whose country holds the EU Presidency until 30 June. 

While Kosovo is not on the foreign ministers' agenda, it is unlikely that they will be able to avoid the topic, after the fledgling state's constitution entered into force on Sunday. 

The EU is also poised to take over policing and justice tasks from the United Nations after the UN's Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week put forward proposals to "reconfigure" the activities of the UN Mission UNMIK to allow the EU to deploy its contested EU-Lex police mission there (EurActiv 29/05/08). 

"It is my intention to reconfigure the structure and profile of the international civil presence [...] enabling the European Union to assume an enhanced operational role," said the secretary general in letters to Kosovo and Serbian leaders. 

But the handover, which is foreseen in Kosovo's constitution, remains strongly opposed by both Serbia and Russia, who insist that the EU mission is illegal because it has not been approved by the UN Security Council. 

Despite the incidents, the minister stressed that his country felt ready to open EU accession negotiations and was hoping for this to happen this year.

"Macedonia is aware that we will not be prepared by tomorrow to become a member of the EU, but we feel prepared tomorrow to open accession negotiations over EU membership," he said.

Macedonia's preferred timing coincides with France's presidency of the EU, which is to start on 1 July and will last until the end of the year.

But French President Nicolas Sarkozy has clearly stated that he supports Greece in a 17-year-old name row over Macedonia's name - something that may eventually prove problematic for Skopje's EU bid.

The European Union has voiced deep concerns over the ethnic violence which marked election day in EU-hopeful Macedonia, leaving one person dead and eight wounded.

"The European Commission is very concerned about the use of violence during the election in the country," the EU's executive body said following Sunday's polls (1 June), widely seen as a test of Macedonia's democratic credentials.

Meanwhile, current prime minister Nikola Gruevski hailed the landslide victory of his centre-right VMRO-DPMNE party, with preliminary results suggesting it secured over 48 percent of the vote.

The score is likely to translate to more than 60 seats in the 120-strong parliament, giving the winning party enough power to stir the agenda.

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