1 Out of all the razzmatazz and all the drama surrounding the historic meeting between Hristijan Mickoski and Stevo Pendarovski came out just this: VMRO-DPMNE is unwavering and determined in pursuing its agenda – the attackers of the Assembly on 27 April 2017 to become defenders of the Constitution.
VMRO-DPMNE doesn’t care about anything else. Even Pendarovski himself said that the meeting wasn’t worthy of media attention.
2 What has EU Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi done to deserve to be given a guard of honour by doctors and nurses in front of the sports hall “A1 Arena Boris Trajkovski”? They took them outside in their white coats in the middle of the vaccination process; the only thing missing was to give them those hand flags to wave with. Why do we give him the chance to feel important, to feel like he’s working, to feel like somehow he’s showing solidarity? Because of the first 4,000 vaccines coming from the EU? After all, Várhelyi hadn’t done his homework before coming here and didn’t know that the healthcare workers had already been revaccinated. And how? With a Serbian donation of American and Russian vaccines. Everyone could tell he had no idea what he was talking about. He pointed towards the healthcare workers in the sports hall and said: “Here, the vaccination of healthcare workers has started and in the next two months everyone will be vaccinated.”
Ah, yes, of course, our healthcare workers would have been vaccinated had we waited for Várhelyi and the European bureaucracy, the same way we’ve received the date for the start of the accession talks. And if it hadn’t been for Aleksandar Vucic, to strut in front of the rich Europeans, showing them how to procure vaccines and schooling them in solidarity to neighbours.
The thing I feel bad about is that Várhelyi stole the spotlight from Austrian Minister Karoline Edtstadler. Because, the initiative to give the Western Balkans vaccines was made by Austria. On top of stealing the spotlight, he even ruined the event with his statement that if we didn’t reach an agreement with Bulgaria, the European Commission could consider the possibility of only Albania starting the EU accession talks.
But the thing I feel worse about is that Prime Minister Zaev didn’t use the moment to respond to that statement by asking Várhelyi publicly in front of the cameras: Is he, as a European official, aware of the consequences if Albania is allowed to start the accession talks, while Macedonia remains blocked by Bulgaria just because we haven’t agreed on what to do with Goce Delchev? Especially that, just a few hours before that the Austrian Minister had said that Austria wants both countries to start the accession talks and that it was about time the EU fulfilled their promise. The woman even spoke Macedonian, the language that Várhelyi probably thinks we should negotiate over with Bulgaria and whether we too speak it.
Let’s see what happens. Let them carry on with what comes as a new threat by the European Commissioner for Enlargement – to allow Albania to move forward, and to punish Macedonia because Macedonians are alive and speak Macedonian. That wouldn’t be just a victory for the Eurosceptics, because even the greatest supporters of the EU over here will give the EU the middle finger. It would be a defeat of European values because the EU itself gave up on them.
Besides, why do we forget that Várhelyi comes from Hungary, from Viktor Orbán’s party? That his leader tramples on European values daily, in the middle of the EU. And – on top of that – that Várhelyi’s boss arranged Nikola Gruevski’s escape and gave him a political asylum.
3 Americans expect that we’ll start the talks with the EU in June, and resolve the dispute with Bulgaria outside of the accession process. The other 26 member states of the EU say the same. Not only because the EU has to deliver on their promise, but because it’s in the interest of Europe’s security. At least that’s what they themselves are saying.
Then, why are our politicians making excuses for the EU that we might not start the talks this summer, that the elections in Bulgaria have failed and that now they have an expert Government there? Why would that be just our problem and not a shared problem of the EU?
Bulgaria won’t get out of the political crisis until New Year. They’ll have new elections in July. They’ll have presidential elections this autumn. If our negotiations with the EU depend on the elections in 27 member states, then we should withdraw on time and not waste our time with false European hopes. There’ll be elections in Germany in autumn. Next year, in May, there’ll be elections in France. Haven’t we already missed the deadline once because of the local elections in France?
Will Russia stand aside and wait for Bulgaria to lift the veto for Macedonia in the EU!? Because, to join the EU reforms don’t matter. What matters is tsar Samoil.
4 By the way, what happened with the 5 thousand vaccines that Borisov announced he’d propose to be gifted to Macedonia by Bulgaria? We’ve already forgotten the hundred vaccines Venko thanked for in Sofia.
5 Everyone adds words to the dictionary. We delete them. As if words containing the root “gypsy”, which one NGO reacted against, will disappear if they’re not in the dictionary.
This is a case of censorship. According to the Constitution, censorship is forbidden. And we censor a dictionary. What’s more, the censorship was done by scientists at the Institute of Macedonian Language. They delete words from the dictionary on their own, as they stated, “to make peace.” In that case, let’s delete the word “censorship” from the dictionary. But, what about the Constitution? We’ll have to delete it there too “to make peace.” So we’d be able to delete words whenever the government gives the order.
This deletion of words at will, because the Government doesn’t consider them politically correct, reminded me of the incident when the monument of Prometheus in front of the Assembly was cast underwear so his little dick wouldn’t be seen. Oops…I beg the Government’s pardon – his little penis.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
