Macedonia: Macedonia's government has vowed to resign if tomorrow's referendum backs a nationalist attempt to withhold powers from the Balkan state's restive Albanian minority.
The vote threatens to cloud celebration of Washington's decision to recognise the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) as simply Macedonia, to the fury of neighbouring Greece. Athens argues that use of the name implies a territorial claim towards the Greek province of Macedonia, birthplace of Alexander the Great.
The unexpected US move was both a reward for Macedonia's support for US operations in Iraq and an attempt to defuse simmering nationalist sentiment ahead of the referendum.
The vote will decide the fate of the final stage of a peace plan brokered in 2001 to end seven months of fighting between government forces and Albanian guerrillas, which raised the spectre of another bloody civil war in the Balkans.
The proposals would give Albanians control over education, health and local economic development in the 16 out of 80 municipalities where they make up 20 per cent of the population, including the country's capital, Skopje. Street signs and official documents in those areas would be in Macedonian and Albanian.
Critics say the plan would split the nation of 2.2 million along ethnic lines, and lead to calls for the creation of a "Greater Albania" with Albania and Kosovo, a scenario that could stir up long-standing territorial grievances nursed by Greece and Bulgaria.
But its supporters, which include the UN, the US and the EU, say the only way for Macedonia to move towards its stated ambition of EU and NATO membership is to forge a peaceful, multi-ethnic democracy.
"Macedonia would fall into a serious political crisis," Prime Minister Hari Kostov said of the potential impact of a vote to block the reform plan.
"Not only would my government then step down, but the country would again be isolated. Economic reforms would be delayed, and foreign investors would go elsewhere." He hoped Macedonians would boycott the nationalist-backed referendum and keep turnout below 50 per cent, and so invalidate the poll.
While Macedonians rejoiced over official US acceptance of their country's name, Greece vowed to block EU and NATO membership for the country while the dispute festered.
"The US move does not help towards the solution of the problem. I'm afraid it intensifies it," Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said in Brussels.
"The EU position remains that, if FYROM wants to have hopes to enter the EU, they have to accept a commonly agreed solution."