1 I regret thinking back in high school: What’s the point of maths? Well, this is the point. So I’d be able to tell whether those two or three classmates who were good at maths are lying to me when they calculate my pension. So I’d be able to tell whether to applaud them for the extra 1,000 denars every pensioner will get this autumn before the local elections.
The linear increase introduced by VMRO-DPMNE as standard practice inspired me to give them another idea for pension reform that would be fitting for a European, conservative party with a right-wing ideology. Since it’s no longer important how much people earned, how much the state took from their salaries to fund pensions, and how many years they contribute to the fund, why don’t we all pay the same amount into the state pension fund? And after 15 years of service, we’d stop paying altogether. Anyone who wants a higher pension could just top it up on their own.
This legal measure should be accompanied by a law on harmonising the salaries of all employees across the public and state administration, from municipal to national level. That way, when the time comes for a pay rise, it won’t be just the officials enjoying a 78 percent increase. Instead, the total increase will be added up, and Minister of Finance Gordana Dimitireska-Kochoska will calculate precisely how much to increase everyone’s salary equally. That way, the prime minister, ministers, their drivers, teachers, actors, public health doctors, even young scanning officers installed in ministries, will all get a one-thousand denar raise before the elections. Everyone’s equal.
Truth be told, this very Minister of Finance, now defending the linear pension increase, was saying this time last year that if they planned to cut her salary, she’d leave, because she works more than the others. Perhaps the party managed to change her mind, as it has on quite a few other things.
2 This has nothing to do with maths. It’s pure populism from the VMRO-DPMNE government, something we’ve seen before, and hardly a surprise. From raising pensions ahead of elections, to cleaning the Skopje Fortress, to opening a boulevard in Gevgelija at 2 p.m. in 43-degrees heat, all the way to foreign policy.
Another example of populism is Mickoski’s proposal that Bulgaria, as an EU member state, submit a resolution to the European Parliament recognising the existence of the Macedonian people and the Macedonian language. It’s so absurd that even the Bulgarians didn’t take it seriously.
This is like shooting yourself in the foot. In case you accidentally miss, you make sure you finish the job by dragging even the Prespa Agreement into question. Of course, none of us were thrilled about being forced to change our constitutional name, and “North” is still a bitter pill to swallow. But the Prespa Agreement, backed by a United Nations Resolution, guarantees our identity as Macedonians who speak Macedonian, along with our cultural heritage. And instead of treating the Prespa Agreement in the EU as a done deal, something no longer up for discussion, the Government offers it up to the European Parliament for debate, although we have no representatives there because we’re not an EU member state.
What does Mickoski’s government actually want? For some people who were elected by the voters of 27 countries, people who have nothing to do with us and couldn’t care less about us, to vote on whether we exist. Because, apparently, if Bulgaria doesn’t approve our existence, we don’t exist
I’m fear we’ll never join the EU. That way, the Government won’t have anyone from the outside keeping it in check. Sure, we’ll lose money from EU funds. Big deal. This country is rich. There’s still plenty left to plunder in Macedonia, even without the EU.
3 Ever since DUI nominated Bujar Osmani for mayor of Chair, the ruling coalition VREDI has been putting out statements counting how many times, as a former minister of foreign affairs, he visited Belgrade, and how many times he visited Tirana and Prishtina.
Is that really the biggest regret of DUI’s rule in previous governments, when they were in coalition with both SDSM and VMRO-DPMNE? Two DUI officials are on the US blacklist for corruption, one of whom is a mayor, the other was a powerful deputy prime minister who’s now on the run, and yet, for VREDI, the biggest issue ahead of local elections is how many times someone visited Belgrade, how many times they visited Prishtina, and how many Albanians they’ve employed. .
Do they seriously think these are the issues that matter most to the Albanian community in Macedonia?
4 The building of Tetovo’s “Kiril Pejchinovikj” High School, which has existed since 1906, is set to be reconstructed with an 800.000 euro donation from a private company. At the start of the reconstruction, Tetovo Mayor Bilal Kasami, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, and Minister of Education Vesna Janevska posed for photos.
Just last year, Mayor Bilal Kasami said that the Municipality would fund the Albanian Academy of Sciences. Yet the Municipality of Tetovo doesn’t have the funds to renovate a high school where Macedonian children attend classes.
5 A new dimension of “active diplomacy” was reached by MP Bojan Stojanoski, who announced on Facebook that he had met with fellow MP Dafina Stojanoska and discussed the budget rebalance.
Bojan Stojanoski is an MP from VMRO-DPMNE. Dafina Stojanoska is an MP from VMRO-DPMNE. The two sit in the same row in Parliament. Until now, it was typical to learn from a press release that a minister and a deputy minister within the same ministry had held a meeting. But they were from different parties. We’ve never had a case where MPs from the same party meet in Parliament and post about it.
Ah, the lengths MPs will go to. For Macedonia. For you.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
