1 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 solely on them and that if Macedonians don’t accept Bulgaria’s demands and say they’re Bulgarian that they would continue to block the European future of their neighbor, then it’s not just a matter of getting their kicks by mistreating the small Balkan country that wants to become a EU member. It’s a rape taking place right in front of the eyes of all of Europe. He even ended the threat on a high note by saying that they were obliged to help their brothers. What kind of a brother is the one who rapes you and presents the rape as him helping you? And what kind of a family is the one in which everyone sees one of them is raping someone weaker and less powerful than them, and they shrug their shoulders and say: What can we do, Bulgaria is one of us?
Bulgaria is literally raping the small, fragile Macedonia, and the entire EU is watching and saying “it’s not fair”, “we’re very disappointed “, “we’re sorry “… But what can we do, they’re our family and such is our decision-making mechanism. Absolutely anything can be a reason for a veto.
Apparently, all those in the EU are really disappointed that they failed to start the accession talks with Macedonia and Albania. We’ve long crossed the threshold of disappointment. We’re no longer disappointed. We’re furious. Bulgaria hates us. They want us to cease to exist. And I really refuse to consider someone who hates me a brother or a sister.
2 They imposed a ton of conditions on us. They gave us tasks. They themselves said that we did our homework. We changed our laws. We changed our name. What else should we do? And all of that just to start the accession talks with the EU. Not to actually be admitted to the EU. The only thing left to do is to become Bulgarians.
Bulgaria isn’t punishing Zaev’s Government. Not any other future government or political and business elite tied to the government. The ones being punished are the Macedonian citizens who still believe in the European Union and the European values. Politicians will find a way to have a comfortable life even without the EU. Many of them don’t find European rules very convenient.
Then seriously, what’s the use of all those reports by the European Commission that we look forward to every six months? And why would we care about what’s written in those reports? What do we get from the recommendations by the European Commission that Macedonia meets the conditions for the start of the accession talks, when obviously those conditions are not the real condition for the start of the accession talks. Bulgaria’s conditions are the condition. That’s what their president said. That’s what was approved by the other 26 prime ministers and heads of state of EU member countries. At the request of Bulgaria they removed the item from the agenda. So it’d be clear in whose hands lies the destiny of Macedonians. They had failed many times in history, but this time the brotherly mechanism of the EU will help them.
3 US President Joe Biden has issued an executive order to sanction anyone who obstructs the implementation of the Prespa Agreement. Wasn’t the Prespa Agreement supposed to close the issue of Macedonians and the Macedonian language once and for all? Now Bulgaria is reopening identity issues in the European Union. It’s not like Federica Mogherini and Johannes Hahn were just sightseeing in Prespa when the Prespa Agreement was signed. They were there on behalf of the EU as one of the guarantors of that agreement. And what happened three years later? The European Union is the one threatening the Prespa Agreement.
I could have expected anything on our path to the EU, but I never thought that the European Union itself would endanger the security of the whole region, even its own security, all just because of the nationalism of one of its member states.
4 Who would have thought that the powerful and democratic European Union would see the day when they stoop to a level where Albania and Serbia make fun of them because of Bulgaria’s veto. Because, at least we in the Balkans know well what Bulgaria is.
We’re the only ones who still imagine our future in the EU, as in the advertisement they played in the campaign after the Prespa Agreement. We’re meek and refrain from comments. If possible, we can buy a hanging rope ourselves. A silken one, so it wouldn’t burn us too much while hanging.
5 I’m sick and tired of excuses who was the competent authority and who wasn’t that in the country there are no license plates, ID cards, passports, driver’s licenses, and even report cards for the students. I’m sick and tired that when a problem arises, all everyone cares about is how to declare themselves as the incompetent authority, not how to solve the problem. I’m sick and tired of excuses that people suddenly rushed to get identity documents, that the system had to be updated in the middle of summer in business days, that the tender procedure was complicated, that someone filed a complaint, that the deadlines aren’t over and that such were the rules… Did children too flock to get their report cards? Didn’t they count how many students enrolled in September?
As a citizen, I’m not interested at all in who’s the competent authority for what. As a citizen I have a problem – I can’t register my car, I can’t take a bank loan because I don’t have an ID card, I can’t go abroad, I can’t drive my car… And I ask the state to solve my problem because I pay for that service. There are ministers, there is a prime minister… First, let them solve the problem. And then let them find the competent authorities and punish them. And let them make sure it won’t happen again.
6 “We continue to work for fewer packed suitcases, lost friends, abandoned homes and lights turned off,” Deputy Prime Minister for anti-corruption Ljupco Nikolovski wrote on Facebook. This is his interpretation of the data of the survey with the question “Has a member of your household migrated to live or work abroad?” according to which in March 2021 the percentage of emigrants was 7%, and in February 2020 it was 16%.
Even if he thinks that he’ll manage to put a positive spin on the data, that emigration has decreased – that’s not the case. Is 7 percent negligible when you consider that borders were closed and airports didn’t work all year long, and that a lot of people who lost their job abroad because of the Covid crisis came back home and stayed trapped here? It feels like those 7 percent of our people were persistent wretches if they managed to get out of the country at a time when it wasn’t possible to even leave the house to go to the supermarket.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
