Strasbourg, 14/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - On 14 January, the chair of the European Parliament's S&D Group, Hannes Swoboda, and the co-chair of the Greens, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, called on Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to make endeavours so that FYROM might obtain the opening of its accession negotiations. In Cohn-Bendit's view, Greece could work on this during the Greek Presidency - but he doubted that it would do so. While “it's evident that it's up to Greece to break the deadlock on the issue of Macedonia”, Europeans must also put pressure on FYROM - the nationalism of which strengthens Greek nationalism, which itself strengthens Macedonian nationalism, he said. “It's a stupid, nasty game that can go on being played for a long time”, Cohn-Bendit said. In Swoboda's opinion, the situation is in stalemate because of the two parties' resistance - the “resistance” of Greece on the issue of the name, and the “resistance of the government of FYROM which is fighting more for Alexander the Great than for accession to the EU”. (CG/transl.fl)