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Economy / Macedonia

Dictionary Attack Defines Ties

June 2009 | Risk Summary

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On June 2, men in black T-shirts - reportedly bearing the logo of Greek far-right party Chrysi Avyi ('Golden Dawn') - stormed an Athens publicity event for a new Greek-Macedonian dictionary. Macedonia's major political parties condemned the incident, and called on Athens to both find the perpetrators and prevent future incidents. However, we caution that with both governments' popularity likely to suffer as the recession drags on, the allure of nationalistic populism will be strong. We therefore stress that ties are likely to remain strained, and that a resolution of the ongoing 'name' dispute is unlikely in the near term. Meanwhile, Macedonian industrial production shrank by 15.3% y-o-y in May, a further deterioration from the 7.7% contraction seen in April.