Serbia Fails to Welcome Macedonia-Greece Name Deal

Serbia remains the only Balkan state which has not yet publicly congratulated its neighbour Macedonia and Greece on their signing on Sunday of a landmark agreement aimed at finally resolving their decades-long dispute over Macedonia's name.

Bojan Klacar, director of the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy, CESID, said that it was very telling that there has been no public reaction so far from Serbia to one of the most important events in the region, which ended the bitter row between Macedonia and Greece.

"As reasons for the absence of official reactions from Belgrade, at this moment, two can be mentioned: first, relations between Serbia and Macedonia since the arrival of [Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran] Zaev are not good, and we have often witnessed bad bilateral relations between the two countries," Klacar said.

Zaev's government came to power last year, replacing the VMRO-DPMNE party, whose administration failed to make progress in the dispute with Athens.

In August 2017, Serbia pulled its embassy staff out of Skopje after President Aleksandar Vucic claimed Belgrade had to have obtained "evidence of very offensive intelligence against the institutions of Serbia" from the Macedonian side, alleging that unnamed "foreign powers" were also involved.

Media reports have speculated that one of the factors in the diplomatic incident was a Serbian intelligence officer, Goran Zivaljevic, who worked as an adviser at the Serbian embassy in Skopje.

Hungary's Orban backs deal's opponents

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was among the European leaders who did not send congratulations after the signing of the 'name' deal.

This came as no surprise, as Orban sent a video message to an anti...