Balkan roadshow - Macedonia (4/6)

In a region of uncertain national identities, Macedonia - the fourth leg of our roadshow - trumps them all with numerous overlapping identity crises: its borders are not agreed with Kosovo, its church is not recognised by the orthodox hierarchy in Serbia, its language is not recognised by Bulgaria, and its name is not recognised by Greece. The name issue may sound trivial but remains one of the biggest obstacles to membership of the EU and NATO. UN membership was only possible using Greece's preferred name for the country: the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM. (Needless to say, the Greeks are not popular here.)

Upon arriving in Skopje, Macedonia's capital, we were struck by the comparatively high standards of the infrastructure. But the third sector here is the most divided and undermined we've seen yet, for one reason: politics.

Macedonia's populist centre-right government, when not erecting enormous flags (which are everywhere) and multi-million euro statues (one of which will be 12 stories high), creates NGOs (government NGOs - GoNGOs), or co-opts existing ones with grants. They accept absolutely no dissent, and any NGO which dares to criticise immediately loses any funding they may have had from government, and often has its leader branded a Greek spy.

Furthermore, there are three distinct camps within the non-GoNGOs: the European-funded, the American-funded, and the Soros-funded. Rivalries here are intense, and there is virtually no cooperation among the major players. Every leader we met claimed to run only independent NGO, and accused every other organisation of being politicised.

Of course we're above all that, and met with leaders at the three main non-GoNGO organisations: CIRa (US-funded), MCIC (European-funded), and FOSIM (the local Soros outfit). The latter two were initially suspicious of us, but gradually warmed to our proposal of creating a non-partisan group of leaders.

As in Podgorica and Pristina, we held a presentation of Euclid Network to leaders in Skopje. Here the questions and discussion were much more lively than in the previous presentations. It seems that leaders here are tired of the divisions within the sector and hope that we can bring people together.

The same sentiments were expressed in our two most successful meetings here, with the British Embassy, and the EU's Ambassador. The latter is one of the most powerful men in the country. When we met in his enormous, immaculate office, he couldn't stop agreeing with our assessment of the situation, and the way forward. Despite Carlo telling the Ambassador that one of our members runs the association of drug dealers, (he meant drug addicts), we are confident that both the EU and the FCO will invest in our activities here.

And so after three days another country was conquered, (partly), and it's time to move on again. As we speed west towards the mountains and the Albanian border, where we will run two events as part of the FCO project, we know we will be very busy with the results of this trip. Four down, two to go.