Europe's most powerful leader, Merkel gives Macedonia blessing for its name

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will spend it in Macedonia on Saturday. Her visit is praised as historic because of the moment the country is at.

Macedonia, on September 30th, votes in referendum on the agreement with Greece, on which integration into NATO and the European Union also depends. The referendum's success paves the way for membership in the Alliance, from which it has also received the invitation, while expected to also begin EU membership talks.

During the German Chancellor's meetings with the heads of institutions in Skopje, the name referendum will dominate the agenda of talks.

Chancellor Merkel, in February of this year, had hosted Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev in Berlin, the conversation in which both sides -- Macedonian and Greek -- have been encouraged to find compromise on the name.

Zaev and Merkel have also met under the NATO summit, when the alliance extended the invitation for membership. Angela Merkel is the first German Chancellor to visit Macedonia after Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's brief visit in 1999, due to the Kosovo crisis.