The judgement of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) clearly states that Greece has breached its obligations toward Macedonia. Such a clear decision in favour of Macedonia was not expected and it can open a little bit more the doors of EU and NATO for Macedonia, says Sabine Freizer, the International Crisis Group-ICG's Europe Program Director.

After being pointed out that despite the ruling, EU has postponed fixing a date for negotiations with Macedonia, the ICG official said: "It needs to be taken into account that the ICJ judgement was delivered before the meeting of EU foreign ministers, which made it difficult for the EU to react over the Hague court's decision."

"I personally urge - and this was emphasised in the ICG report - the EU to open its screening process - a process of discussions on chapters with Macedonia. Even if the membership talks are not officially launched, the screening process can be started. This is our recommendation to the EU," Freizer says in an interview with Deutsche Welle - Macedonian language program.

Considering Macedonia's membership to NATO, she is optimistic hoping that the deadlock will be settled for the 2012 summit in Chicago. "This is mainly due to the fact that the United States is hosting the event and the country generally advocates Macedonia to make progress in its accession to NATO."

"Unfortunately, we were well aware that there's no obligation the judgement to be respected. However, in political point of view, there will be consequences. Both NATO and EU will open their doors a little bit more for Macedonia thanks to the ICJ ruling. But it won't entirely change the position of certain European countries," Freizer deems.

She is not an optimist that a solution to the name dispute will be found soon.

"The ICG has recommended Macedonia to accept a name with an adjective, such as the Republic of Northern Macedonia or something like that. I know that this is not very acceptable for the two parties, which is why I'm not an optimist when it comes to a name solution. However, it is of great importance for Macedonia a solution to be found, because as we can see, the ICJ judgement helps the doors to be opened, but only slightly because there is no name row settlement," says the ICG representative.

Freizer believes Greece is not under sufficient pressure to find a name settlement.

"I think Greece is not under a lot of pressure. It is not clear yet how the new Greek government is going to treat the issue with Macedonia. At the moment, Greece has so many other issues. It seems a little paradoxical that now when Greece is weak both politically and economically, other EU countries make no attempts to exert additional pressure over the Macedonia issue. I admit it is surprising and it must be said that there is not significant pressure on Greece," she notes.

It's a pity that Macedonia cannot make a headway towards EU and NATO, because the country's stability and multi-ethnic life depends on it, Sabine Freizer concludes.