1 You can talk as much as you want, I’ll still dance to my own tune. That’s more or less how Vice Prime Minister Bojan Marichic presented the latest European Commission report on Macedonia’s European integration progress. They wrote “you’ve made no progress” and your judiciary and the fight against corruption are a disaster, but Marichic says, all right, but let us now include Bulgarians in our Constitution.

It’s as if he lives on another planet when he says: There is no problem in this report that we cannot solve in the course of the EU accession talks, but to do so, it is important for us to fulfil our obligation with the constitutional amendments.”

So – our obligation to Brussels is the only thing that matters. What about the obligation to our own citizens? What about the obligation to our own taxpayers who fund their salaries and businesses trips to Brussels? Those of us who chose to stay and live here deserve some attention as well, don’t we? How many of the issues noted by the European Commission as “no progress” could have been completed in the past six years without the EU? Or, at the very least, could have marked some progress?

Yes. Our future is in the EU. And yes – without the support of the EU we won’t be able to accomplish some capital investments, regional connections, alignments with the broader market… However, not stealing – that can be done without the EU. Respecting the law – that can be done without the EU. The Government showing respect to honest citizens, and not rewarding dishonest ones – that can be done without the EU. Cleaning up rubbish can be done without the EU. Brooms don’t need European flags. Do you need to be an EU member state to park in designated areas? Do you need to be an EU member state to be able to get a document from the Registry Office online? Do you have to be an EU member state for students to receive textbooks and report cards on time? Do you have to be an EU member state to stop the mercilessly selling of state land to make your friends happy and to make your citizens miserable by lowering their quality of life? Do you have to be an EU member state to end party deal-making and piling up employees in the state administration, which ultimately destroys our national treasure? Do you realise we’re a state without a post office. We’re the crossroads of the Balkans, landlocked, but are still left without a railway. There’s a long list of things that can be done without initiating the EU accession talks and honestly, I find it painful to list everything.

If the government is so concerned about its obligations to Brussels, then why did it disregard Brussels’ instructions not to smuggle the amendments to the Criminal Code under a European flag, which ended up legalising impunity of high-left embezzlement? They even weave a tale claiming, “We asked the EU to provide us with information about the Judicial Council”. They expect them to come from Brussels and tell us. The Judicial Council is in Skopje, isn’t it? We also know the members of the Judicial Council and the judges, we know who’s closely connected, which businessmen are involved and which politicians are in cahoots with businesses and judges… All of them are esteemed citizens, part of the intellectual elite, you might even say, the cream of the crop in our society. Macedonia is a small country, we all know each other, we don’t need Brussels to introduce us to one another.

What do all those items marked as “there is no progress” in the European Commission’s report have to do with the obligation for constitutional amendments? Would this report have been different if Bulgarians had already been included in the Preamble? And more importantly: would this country be a better place to live than it is now?

2 When European Commissioner for Enlargement, Olivér Várhelyi, criticises Macedonia for not making progress in the fight against corruption, I really can’t take him seriously because his Hungary has provided a safe haven as political asylum for our highest-profile politician accused of corruption, Nikola Gruevski, until the statute of limitations on his cases expires. I can’t understand how Ukraine managed to make progress in implementing the rule of law during the war. I don’t know what criteria the European Commission used to assess Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, which don’t control parts of their territory yet have passed the chapter on good neighbourly relations. I feel sorry for Bosnia, was their war less tragic than the one in Ukraine, so that’s why the Bosnians don’t deserve an unconditional start to negotiations?

That’s how politics works. Politics is not fair. The EU is not fair, it’s demonstrated that many times, at least in the case of Macedonia. And we need the EU more than the EU needs us. It is what it is.

The war in Ukraine has brought EU enlargement on the agenda. They’re talking about momentum, open windows, winds of change, money, favourable loans, EU reforms, gradual accession to the EU… But how are we expected to harness this wind of change with a government combined with the incompetence, laziness and corruption of SDSM and reinforced with the bullying nature, illiteracy and corruption of DUI, whose shared guiding principle about the EU is the beggar mentality: “They’ll give us money.” To make the whole situation even bleaker, the party that’s preparing to assume power is VMRO-DPMNE, the party that pillaged everything it could and hi-jacked the state to such an extent that institutions are still struggling to recover.

Even now, the thought of what we’ll be hearing in the election campaigns makes me sick. They’ll talk about the EU again. Can we shift our attention from how things will go with EU to how things will go with us? Let’s see what we can achieve back home while we have the help and support of the EU. Let’s not talk about Macedonia in the EU – in some distant future. Let’s talk about a democratic and prosperous Macedonia where the rule of law prevails now. Once we do that, we can start talking about the EU. We won’t even notice when we join if our everyday life is European-like.

If they want to make reforms in line with European standards, who’s stopping them? But they don’t want to. Because in such a country, one doesn’t steal and escape unpunished.

3 As elections draw near, DUI begins to bring up narratives about Greater Albania. How do they not tire of telling the same stories over and over again? Don’t their voters have other life challenges?

The children born during the war in 2001 are already graduating and are queuing up for work visas in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden… Those who didn’t study there have already moved abroad. Who’s DUI’s target audience for these Greater Albania stories? All those who’ve stayed here and need to be employed in state institutions so they’d be loyal voters and all the businessmen who need to rig the state tenders.

Ali Ahmeti and his associates have nothing to offer voters, so they keep milking the myth of Greater Albania. And Greater Albania is in fact a code name for theft.

4 12 children from the lowest grades in elementary schools in the municipality of Karposh in Skopje have been poisoned with salmonella. Yet, parents don’t want to speak in front of cameras. Who are they afraid of? The mayor? The principal? The head of the kitchen?

That right there is the true expression of what it means to be Macedonian. Had that happened in another country, the parents wouldn’t have stepped away from the camera. Yet here, they keep stealing from you, they keep taking your public spaces, they keep intruding into your yard, they keep not paying you for months, but for now we’re keeping our powder dry. And you hope someone else will take the responsibility even for what you say.

If the fact your child has been poisoned is not enough of a challenge for you to be encouraged to speak out, then it’s not the state’s fault. The authorities have a precise understanding of how much they can grind you down.

This time, we’ll exempt the EU from responsibility.

Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski