Columns
EMILIJA AND MARTA
The complete deadlock over the EU enlargement caused by the Bulgarian veto on Macedonia was best explained in just a single sentence by the Bulgarian Vice President Iliana...
GO AWAY!
It doesn’t feel nice to listen to the recording in which Speaker Talat Xhaferi adresses some parliamentary clerks in an arrogant and vulgar manner. The command “go, go away!”...
BLOCKED MINDS
How is it going? Just fine, it’s May already, spring isn’t in its full bloom yet, and we’re crossing out the days until the expiration of the ultimatum Mickoski gave to...
FAULTY MARRIAGES
You can’t blame people for asking more money from the state. You can’t blame them for blaming the state for everything they don’t like. That’s because for thirty years all the...
PLEASE DON’T, BROTHER
What progress has been made by the working groups of Dimitar Kovachevski and Kiril Petkov focused on turning Macedonia and Bulgaria to the future? How much humiliation from the...
PUT THE OIL BACK
Does anyone really believe that the cause of the fire in the area of the former furniture factory “Treska” in the Skopje Municipality of Centar will be revealed? Does anyone...
NEE-NAW
Kiril Bozhinovski, Dragi Rashkovski, Muhamed Zekiri… Continue the sequence. It turns out that the post of Secretary General of the Government is a profitable business. With all...
OPEN YOUR DOOR
Macedonia’s European future, as well as Albania’s, is blocked because of 3,504 people. That’s how many Macedonian citizens declared themselves Bulgarian on the census. 1,519...
A COMPLEX DIAGNOSIS
I was really happy that the Macedonian national football team beat Italy. I’m still in a good mood. When I saw the photo of the spectators stands and noticed the Minister of...
WE’RE ALL JUST ONLOOKERS
Gjorgje, come back. We’re all just onlookers. That’s the message of the Court of Appeals after they gave Zdravko Saveski and Vladimir Kunoski a suspended sentence of six months...
JOVANO, JOVANKE
I don’t understand the need to take sides between Russia and America over the war in Ukraine. The need to gloat at Americans over Russians killing Ukrainians. A sovereign state...
A NUCLEAR WINTER
All right, is there anyone in the country who’ll punish the war profiteering that’s done with food and fuel? I don’t expect the Government to just condemn the act of...
RUSSIAN BOOT
As we wait for the working groups of Kiril Petov and Dimitar Kovachevski to agree whether the fundamental civil value upon which the EU rests shall apply for Macedonians, Europe...
RADICAL MANAGEMENT
The mayor of Skopje, Danela Arsovska, speaking from the position of president of the Association of Local Self-Government Units (ZELS) threatened the Government that mayors will...
A LITTLE WINDOWPANE IN BITOLA
The government has increased the workers’ salaries. Well, now they should increase the salaries of work-dodgers. UPOZ, the Trade Union of Civil and Public Servants in the...
GOCE’S EU
We celebrated the 150 years jubilee of Goce Delchev’s birth. He’s a historical figure born in the 19th century, who became an obstacle to Macedonia’s progress towards the EU...
AN OLD HOPE
To many happy returns of Goce Delchev’s birthday, which we’ll celebrate together with the Bulgarians on 4 February. We had an optimistic start in our second year trying to...
A ROMANTIC LEVEL
The relations with Bulgaria are entering a new phase – a poetically romantic one. The visit of the new Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov began with the statement by the new...
BREAD AND COIN
When, as a country, you allow the heat distribution in the capital to depend on a company whose owners no one knows, it’s no wonder that they’re laughing in the Government’s...
TWO DAYS OF PEACE AND QUIET
Oh, if only every day were Christmas Eve or Christmas. And if only Omicron didn’t exist, so we’d enjoy the boredom. Plus, it feels so wonderful to read politicians' greetings. They’re brimming with...
PANDEV AND ELMAS
I really want 2022 not to be a historic year for Macedonia. This column is turning 31 in a month, and I’m sick and tired of writing about historic events, historic dates, historic elections,...
FREEDOM WITHOUT JUSTICE
Whatever you write about Zoran Zaev in the week when he resigned as Prime Minister, you risk being accused of either defending him or attacking him. There is no third option....
EU WITHOUT YOU
How about that, yet again we have no date for starting the EU accession talks. How nice. Ha, ha, ha… The EU folks have lied to Zaev once again. Ha, ha, ha… Surely if we were the...
BULGARIAN OFFENSIVE
Let’s stop fooling ourselves. It’s not about Tsar Samuil, nor is it about Goce Delchev. And it’s even less about the Bulgarians not having rights in Macedonia. Unlike the...
THE EXCITEMENT GROWS
Alternativa is close to making a decision about joining the Government. The excitement grows. Zoran Zaev and Afrim Gashi have been meeting every day and after each meeting they...
SLEEP ON IT AND FORGET IT
The director of the State Transport Inspectorate, Rufi Huseini, first complained that he didn’t have enough inspectors to inspect all the transport companies that have buses....
WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER
We have a double drama. The announcements of a new parliamentary majority resemble the date for the start of the EU accession talks and Bulgaria’s veto. It will happen today, it...
POKING FUN
Just poke fun at them and pretend you don’t live here. Poking fun is a great thing. But it stops being funny when it occurs to you that you too are part of all that fun. For...
PEOPLE – CHECK
NATO – check. Census – check. Congratulations, people! A billboard with this text stood right across the Government as part of SDSM’s local elections campaign, which went so...
A SPARE MOTHERLAND
Just as the elected officials declare at the Anti-Corruption Commission how much money and property they have when they enter politics, they should also declare at the State...
SAY THANK YOU
Woah, the evil will happen again!? Well, has it just occurred to you? The citizens who brought you to power have been working you for four years: Be careful, the evil will...
ALL PISS AND WIND
It’s been raining for days, just before the municipal elections. You go out of the house with fresh impressions of the arguments and counter-arguments provided by the mayoral...
HOSTILE BULGARIA
Is Prime Minister Zoran Zaev still clinging to the idea that he’ll convince Bulgarian politicians to lift the veto on the start of our accession talks with the EU by hugging it...
THE SAVAGES OF THE WESTERN BALKANS
The government drafted a proposal for a new law, according to which administrative staff will work 36 hours a week instead of 40. They’ll work only 4 hours on Friday. Why bother...
BANAL BULGARIA
Seriously, it’s becoming banal to still speak about Bulgaria. Just like Prime Minister Zoran Zaev finds it banal to answer questions about the modular hospitals, that is, as...
AN ILL-NATURED PEOPLE
Seriously, shame on us. Those poor people in the government, the government and municipal officials, the directors and the clerks in the public administration appointed by the...
THERE’S NO END TO THIS
Despite all the sadness, anger and despair that overwhelmed me after the terrible fire in the Covid centre in Tetovo, in which 14 people died, I have nothing to say. I was...
MACEDONIA EXPRESS
On Wednesday, we’re celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the independent Macedonian state. Someone born on 8 September 1991 is turning thirty this year. The time has come...
WE’RE NOT THE COMPETENT AUTHORITY
Signatures are being collected for so many independent civil initiatives for candidates for councilors in almost all major municipalities, and that’s an encouraging sign for...
“A SLIP OF PAPER” SYSTEM
Children lost an entire school year because of the pandemic. It’s not like 6,000 people died just to Covid-19. Thousands of people without Covid suffered, some of them even died...
30 PER CENT
The whole country is on fire, half of Europe has come to put out the wildfires, the Covid numbers are skyrocketing, while First Deputy Prime Minister Artan Grubi is wondering...
A VICIOUS CIRCLE
Haven’t we learned anything from life? For example, what have we learned from the heavy downpour in Shipkovica back in August 2015 when six people lost their lives? Have the...
BOJAN, I HAVE AN IDEA
Oh, wow, SDSM and VMRO-DPMNE got so scared of the non-affiliated citizens that they decided to change the Electoral Code of Conduct three months before the local elections....
MACSHANE’S WATCH
In December 2007, when asked when Macedonia would receive a date to start the negotiations, EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told jokes about the composer Jean Sibelius....
TIPPABLE JUDGES
It's over. The problem with corruption in the judiciary, or rather in the public administration in general, is located. There would be no corruption if there were no media to...
DUDES AND SHOW-OFFS
For four years they fought against the illegal urban plans that VMRO-DPMNE used to carry out at four o'clock in the morning and - they gave up. SDSM shot themselves in the foot...
CALL THE POLICE
Picture one – Sitting in the shade by the lake, a little bit of Oteshevo, a little bit of Ohrid. There, the whole Government, all the ambassadors, politicians, ministers,...
A BROTHERLY MECHANISM
When Bulgarian President Rumen Radev dares to make an announcement in the middle of Brussels that it should be clear to everyone that the European future of Macedonia depends...
NOTHING WILL COME OUT OF DEVE BAIR
Why would Zaev go to Bulgaria, when the day before, he was told from Sofia they had no intention to lift the veto on the start of Macedonia’s accession talks with the EU? He was...
GETTING RID OF LICE
If Angela Merkel was the first to fail, and now Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron don’t manage to lift Bulgaria’s veto on the start of Macedonia’s accession talks to join the...