FACTBOX-Profile of troubled EU-hopeful Macedonia

June 1 (Reuters) - Macedonians vote on Sunday for a government that will be asked to get the country's NATO bid back on track, start accession talks with the European Union and calm tensions after weeks of violence between ethnic Albanian parties.

Here is a profile of Macedonia, which broke away from Yugoslavia in 1991.



RECENT HISTORY

* The southernmost and poorest of the Yugoslav republics, Macedonia was the only one to leave the federation peacefully. International recognition was held up by Greece's objections to its use of what it said was a Greek name and symbols.

In 1993 it joined the United Nations as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. It changed its flag and constitution to end a Greek trade embargo in 1995.

The Socialists dominated government until 1998, when they lost power to the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE. A seven-month ethnic Albanian insurgency in 2001 ended with a peace deal brokered by Western powers.

In 2002, the re-styled socialists went into coalition with the former rebels. President Boris Trajkovski, a unifying figure during the 2001 conflict, died in a plane crash in February 2004.

The VMRO-DPMNE, now reformed and led by Nikola Gruevski, won the 2006 election and allied with a smaller Albanian party. The coalition was shaky for months over the country's reform path before Greece dealt the final blow by blocking Macedonia's bid to join NATO.



CONFLICT

* In February 2001, fighting broke out between government troops and ethnic Albanian rebels, who seized towns and villages in the north and west of the country. With full-blown civil war looming, Western powers brokered a peace deal in August 2001.

The Ohrid Accord, named after the lakeside resort where it was signed, promised more rights to ethnic Albanians, which make up 25 percent of the population.

A NATO peace force was deployed to disarm the rebels. Some former rebels entered the Social Democrat-led coalition government that took power in 2002. After much haggling, a key element of the peace deal was realised in August 2004, giving Albanians greater language rights and local powers.

A NATO force, then EU peacekeepers and then EU police monitors were in place until late 2005.



LAND AND PEOPLE

* Roughly the size of Sicily, landlocked Macedonia borders newly independent Kosovo, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania. Of a population of 2 million, about 600,000 live in the capital Skopje.

The state is officially secular. Majority Macedonians and minority Serbs are Orthodox Christian, while minority Albanians, Turks and Roma are mostly Muslim. Macedonian is the official language, but under the Ohrid deal Albanian is used in parliament and in areas where Albanians make up at least 20 percent of residents.



ECONOMY

* Macedonia remains among the poorest countries in Europe, with per-capita gross domestic product around $8,000. The economy was shattered in the early 1990s by U.N. sanctions on Serbia, one of Macedonia's main markets, and a Greek trade embargo, but has been recovering slowly on the strength of improvements in sectors such as mining and agriculture and extensive fiscal reforms.

GDP grew by just over five percent in 2007 and inflation is low. Unemployment is around 30 percent and the grey economy is thriving, estimated at more than 20 percent of GDP. (Editing by David Fogarty)