Macedonia celebrates today's 27th anniversary of independence

This referendum was boycotted by Albanians in Macedonia, who demanded autonomy status and were not satisfied with the position achieved in the new Constitution of this country. According to state estimates of the time, over 95 percent of citizens who appeared in the September 8th 1991 referendum responded positively to the referendum question “A are for independent Macedonia to enter into force in the future coalition of sovereign states of Yugoslavia”.

Referendum preceded the Declaration of Independence, which Macedonia's first multiparty Parliament approved on January 25th 1991. Formally, the people's will for independent states was found with the Declaration of Accepting the results of the referendum on September 18th 1991 in the Republic of Macedonia's Parliament.

The next important step in reinforcement of the state was the adoption of the new Constitution on November 17th 1991. Shadows in events with which the foundations of independent Macedonia were laid down threw out the boycott of the referendum on the part of a part of the ethnic Albanian community and the failure to support the new Constitution by Albanian MPs. Ten years later the Constitution was fulfilled after the 2001 conflict and the signing of the Ohrid Agreement.

The first Macedonia recognised the Republic of Bulgaria, after what followed the recognitions from Turkey, Slovenia, Croatia, Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina...

The state was financially independent with the deployment of the denarius on April 26, 1992, and then won its own Army, which celebrates on August 18th.

International administrative subject of the state was definitely confirmed on April 8, 1993, when, with advertising at the United Nations General Assembly, Macedonia was accepted as an 181st member of the World Organisation. However, due to Greece's objections and pressures, which do not accept Macedonia's constitutional name, UN membership took place under the provisional reference to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Under UN auspices, Skopje and Athens began talks on resolving the problem with Greece under Macedonia's constitutional name, which still continues.

Macedonia has so far established diplomatic relations with 170 states in the world, while under the constitutional name it has been accepted by 135 states, among which three members of the Security Council China, the Russian Federation and the US.

During the past 22 years of independence, Macedonia went through a series of procedures and difficulties. Three-sided inflation in the early 1990s, the Greek embargo, the Kosovo refugee crisis and conflict in 2001 were real challenges and threats to Macedonia's new state, which slowed its path towards realising strategic goals of democracy and integration into Euro-Atlantic structures. In recent years, European Union legislation, decentralisation of power, defence reforms needed for NATO membership, marked the process of adopting legislation.

Despite meeting all the criteria for equal NATO membership at the Alliance's summit in Bucharest in April 2008, the Republic of Macedonia received only conditional invitation for membership, as Greece because of the name dispute blocked accession.

In 2005 Macedonia received the candidate country's status for EU membership, while last year, the EC's recommendation for the start of pre-proliferation negotiations with Union.

Greece, following an example with NATO, also blocked Macedonia's Eurointegration, conditioning the preliminary resolution of the name issue.