The reason why the Republic of Macedonia, unfortunately, has remained outside of Euro- Atlantic integrations, is of internal and external nature. The internal cause is the conduct of the Macedonian political leadership, which to a great extend, does not take serious actions to resolve the name dispute with Greece and the external cause - the Greek behavior, which is misusing its previous membership in EU and NATO.

The paper analyses the advantages of Macedonian Euro-Atlantic integration. On the one hand, the accent is put on Macedonian political leadership and its false willingness to resolve the name dispute with Greece - set as a condition for our integration. On the other hand, the paper discusses the consequences of postponement of Euro-Atlantic integrations and its impact to inter ethnic relations.

Key words: integration, name dispute, foreign policy, inter-ethnic relations, Macedonia

After its independence in 1991, Macedonia adopted the denomination of the Republic of Macedonia,i after peacefully seceding from Yugoslavia. In the same year, Macedoniaii adopted its constitutioniii and since April 1993 it has become a full member of the United Nations under the provisional denomination of "the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (FYROM), due to the Greek veto against its constitutional name.

Macedonia faced many international challenges after its independence: the UN imposed an economic embargo on Yugoslavia between 1992 and 2000, the Greek imposed a trade embargo because of its denomination during 1993-1996, the 1999 Kosovo refugee crisis and the 2001 internal ethnic crisis - because the independenceiv of Macedonia and its Constitution were interpreted differently by the Albanianv and Macedonian communitiesvi of the country.