Macedonia's Methodist president visits Britain
8/9/2000 News media contact: Linda Bloom · (646) 369-3759 · New York By Moira Sleight* LONDON (UMNS) -- In a region racked by ethnic conflict and friction, Macedonia could be a model for its neighbors said the country's president, Boris Trajkovski, when he met with British Methodist leaders at Westminster Central Hall in July.
Trajkovski, who took up office last December and is the first Protestant in politics in the Balkan region, said that his election was a "good symbol of a multi-confessional, multi-ethnic state" where "people feel safe." Macedonia, where Trajkovski serves as a United Methodist lay leader, is 67 percent Christian, with 98 percent of that number being Orthodox.
During a visit to London that included meetings at 10 Downing Street and with the Queen, Trajkovski had been particularly interested in meeting with British Methodists.
The president has long-standing links with British Methodists in Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamsted through regular youth exchanges that have taken place between that circuit and his own church in Skopje. In December, he twice met the then-president of the British Methodist Conference, the Rev. Stuart Burgess, the then Vice-President, Brian Thornton, and Moira Sleight, the editor of the Methodist Recorder, in Macedonia when the three were in the region as part of a visit to British army chaplains in Kosovo.
At the July Westminster Central Hall meeting, Trajkovski outlined the economic and political reforms currently being carried out in Macedonia, both to provide the right climate for foreign investors and to develop democracy. Work was also being carried out to create a "good atmosphere of reconciliation and dialogue," he said.
The purpose of his visit to London was to present Macedonia's needs and goals, he said. "We are a country promoting peace and stability in the region and contributing to it," he said. "We are a model to others and deserve international support. We must survive so we can be a place which offers a zone for expanding peace and stability in the region."
A priority for Macedonia was to become a member of the European Union and NATO. "We wish to become part of the European family. We are part of Europe - we belong to it," he said, adding that with the enlargement of the European Union, stability and security would come.
During the Kosovo crisis, NATO had made promises of assistance and aid for Macedonia. However, Trajkovski said nothing concrete had resulted from this yet but "we are committed to these promises being kept." Direct investment was important, he said, pointing out that Macedonia had the best roads in the region, best communications, best resources and was geographically well-placed.
"If Macedonia is a good model it will be easier for the Serbian people to see how things can be," he said. "There would be a challenge to live like their neighbors."
Proud of his country and proud of his church, Trajkovski confided as he left that one of the things he most missed as a result of his election as president was being able to preach on a regular basis.
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*Moira Sleight is editor of the Methodist Recorder in Britain, where this article first appeared.
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