1 Okay, can the MPs of the current composition of the Assembly pass the amendments to the Constitution and include Bulgarians in the Preamble, but the decision to be implemented with delayed effect – the amendments will be valid from the day Bulgaria recognises Macedonians’ right to self-determination. Would that be a problem for the EU? If it is indeed a problem, then why? Why would the right to self-determination even be a topic of discussion in the 21st century?
Even Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski finally found the courage to call Bulgaria to start implementing the verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and to ensure rights for Macedonians who identify that way. So, he asked something from Bulgaria without being afraid of Brussels or Washington’s reaction. It was long overdue. Let that statement be the starting point around which both the government and the opposition would unite. They could agree at least on that.
There’ll be foreigners making frequent visits to convince us how nice things will be once we change our Constitution, so here’s a nice idea: let’s ask one of them to lock Kovachevski and Mickoski at an unknown location for a few days and make them debate on the topic: EU. Instead of accusing each other who’s in favour of the EU and who’s against, since that’s really not the topic of discussion, let them have a sit-down and agree: ok, what do we do now? What can we do to make the most of the situation for our country, despite the French proposal, what can we ask as a guarantee, who are the friends we’ll work with, who are the enemies we’ll stay away from… and to remember to do it for the sake of the citizens, and not for the sake of their parties. And when they get out of there, to come out with a joint stance: We will demand this and that from the EU, we will not accept this and that.
So when the German Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock comes again in December, she won’t have to go to Kovachevski and Mickoski separately, as if she’s meeting the leaders of two separate countries, and she’ll get all the answers from one place. Also, when a German minister promises on behalf of the EU that they won’t throw Macedonia to the wolves if the constitutional amendments are implemented, as she just did, let them ask her to put it on paper and deliver it to Brussels. Personally, after what they did to us with Bulgaria, not only do I not believe in statements, but I no longer believe in written guarantees from the EU, but why not, let there be a unilateral statement by Germany recorded in the archives, just as there’s a unilateral statement by Bulgaria saying there is no such thing as Macedonian language.
When it comes down to it, let all the other 26 EU member states submit unilateral statements saying that they do recognise the Macedonian people and the Macedonian language. Let’s not fool ourselves, even that is no guarantee that we will ever join the EU, but considering the fact we’re dealing with a hostile neighbour, it wouldn’t hurt to have additional letters of guarantee for the Macedonian people, which feels humiliated.
2 Our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bujar Osmani, should stop making statements on the topic: Bulgaria and the EU. We know that “Macedonia has undertaken obligations it must fulfil in order to join the EU”, mostly because he himself participated in the creation of the notorious French Proposal. However, he shouldn’t take us for fools when he says “this time it depends only on us”. He should save those European stories for his fellow party members in Chair. Plus, trying to flatter Annalena, he said that “At any attempt to bilateralise the process, Germany is the first to react that it is not good for the process”.
Thanks to Germany for supporting Macedonia. The former chancellor Angela Merkel too came to Skopje before the referendum on the name and spoke in a similar manner to Olaf Scholz and Annalena Baerbock, however during the German presidency of the European Union she failed to prevent the Bulgarian veto. Berlin doesn’t speak on behalf of Sofia. Bulgarians dug in their heels and pushed forward with their plan for the bilateral non-recognition of the Macedonian identity to gain European legitimacy, and Bujar dares to say “it depends on us, the problem was not bilateralised”. He’s convincing us that we don’t have a problem with Bulgaria, we have a problem with the EU.
Bujar, be quiet, don’t kick us when we’re down. Instead of coming up with excuses for the EU for the Bulgarisation of the enlargement process, why don’t you go to Sofia to check up on Hristijan Pendikov, the guy from the club in Ohrid which bears the name of the Bulgarian tsar during the fascist occupation of Macedonia. As the Macedonian Minister of Foreign Affairs you were interested in how his health was. Now, as the chairman of the OSCE, go and check whether he’s on voter lists in Sofia and whether he’s been granted his voting rights for the Bulgarian elections on 2 April. He hasn’t registered to vote in Ohrid.
It’s one thing that the EU has made a mess of things, it’s another that our government feels responsible to justify it. Although they served us stinky food and made us eat it, because apparently we wouldn’t get anything better, and they’ll force us to stomach yet another stinky dish, we don’t really have to brag about it: “wow this European food is delicious, wow what a delicacy they’ve prepared for us”.
I don’t feel like eating anymore.
3 The constitutional amendments are not a simple mathematical operation of collecting 80 votes. Perhaps they’ll convince MPs to vote. With conversations, with negotiations, with pressure, with bribes, with rewards, with threats, with exemption from criminal prosecution, with ambassadorships… We’re watching a rerun. And we’ve already seen how principled Macedonian politicians are.
The problem is how to convince the public that those constitutional changes are for the sake of everyone. Will the ruling SDSM and DUI have the nerve to appear in front of us and say the constitutional changes are for our own good, considering the fact they’ve been stealing from us while looking us in the eye and laughing in our face? And will VMRO-DPMNE have the nerve to convince us that things will be better with them, considering the fact they’re stealing at the local level, and haven’t even apologised for the 11-year-long robbery, nor have they distanced themselves from it? Plus, no one went to prison either.
Once Bulgarians are included in our Constitution the way of governance will change immediately. With the same leaders, the same parties and the same dishonest exercise of power.
4 Of all the good reasons Annalea Baerbock could have listed why the constitutional changes must be done as soon as possible, she found the most inappropriate one. She said: “you should make the constitutional changes if you don’t want young people to leave”.
As if young people are leaving Macedonia because Bulgarians are not included in the Preamble.
5 “We are not a train, but a hurricane. Don’t stand in the way of the hurricane, it will run you over”, said Ali Ahmeti at DUI’s European rally in Chair.
On the same day, Macedonian Railways issued a decree that the speed of trains on the Skopje-Veles railway is limited to a maximum of 20 km per hour.
Hurry slowly. On our way to the EU.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
