Macedonian Debating Team wins �Macedonia Open 2007�

The debating team of the Youth Education Forum (YEF), won the international debating tournament �Macedonia Open 2007�.

The tournament took place at the �Orce Nikolov� secondary school in Skpoje, May 18-20. It was organized by YEF, with support by the Government�s Youth and Sports Agency, the EC Delegation to Macedonia, McDonalds and �Orce Nikolov� secondary school. Seven countries were represented in the tournament (Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Albania and Romania) with 100 contestants.

The tournament finals, held on Sunday at the Parliament, were contested by the debate teams of Macedonia and Montenegro, on the topic �EU Should Abolish Visas for Western Balkan Countries without Delay�.

�EU and the countries of Western Balkans will both feel the benefits of the abolition of the visa regime. Also, with the abolition, the EU will assist and motivate the accelerated development of the Western Balkan countries�, was the leading argument of the Macedonian team.

�At this time, no country in the Western Balkans is prepared for a visa-free regime. In the long-term, the visas should be abolished, however, to do it now would create more problems than benefits�, responded the Montenegro team which had the difficult task to defend the existing visa regime.

The Macedonian team was made of Brankica Georgievska, Petar Dimitrov and Ivan Mickovski. The debating teams were received, on the behalf of the Parliament, by the Vice-President Besim Dogani. After the final debate, an open discussion was held on the topic �United Youth Today, Stronger Europe Tomorrow�, with participation of EU representatives, members of international organizations, Macedonian government representatives and NGOs.