1 The government went to Arachinovo to negotiate with the residents and the mayor and they agreed to allow teams from EVN to enter and disconnect all those who have an illegal electricity connection. They’ll bring up the issue of paying bills at a later stage of the negotiations.
Now, let’s steer away from politics and let’s not accuse each other of being a nationalist, of being a cosmopolitan, let’s try to describe in simple words what happened in Arachinovo, without bringing into the equation Albanians, Macedonians and all the others listed in the Preamble of the Constitution, after the entire municipality was left without electricity due to the overload of the transformer stations caused by too many illegal connections and the fact EVN were afraid to come in to repair the fault. In a country that is a member of NATO and a country that is seriously preparing for the EU accession talks, the Government is negotiating with the residents of said village to allow EVN teams, with the help of the police, to disconnect the illegally connected non-payers, so the law-abiding citizens who pay their bills could have electricity.
The Minister of Economy, Kreshnik Bekteshi, said it was true that there are electricity losses in Arachinovo, but that there are other municipalities facing the same situation. He says that “electricity theft is a crime, but it is not the problem of only one company but the system which should solve this issue”, and added that” in every municipality and in every family there is someone who does not respect the regulations”, and that’s why “I will also ask the Ministry of Internal Affairs to act in all municipalities where there are large electricity losses”.
Well, if it’s not only Arachinovo, that’s a mitigating circumstance. Then, how come EVN teams can’t enter Arachinovo? When people from EVN come to check the electricity meters in my building, they don’t come with the police. We open our door to heating engineers who regulate the heating temperature, without the police. Why do we need to waste money to train police personnel if it just collects money for utility bills? And why does the Government expect us to recognize it as a success when they say it out loud on TV? People even start a discussion about how inhumane it is to turn off the electricity of the one stealing it from me. Here, I can’t hold back my tears while I’m paying my bills, contemplating the terrible fate of electricity thieves.
It’s a good thing that EVN at least has electricity teams, so the only thing they need is for the police to help them. All right, in this case the state will help a private company to collect unpaid bills. Then, who’ll help the state collect unpaid taxes? Will international negotiators enter Arachinovo again, like in 2001?
2 It’s perfectly normal for the state to give the municipality of Arachinovo one million euros to fix its sewage system, since we live in the 21st century and it’s inhumane for someone to live without a sewage system in the 21st century in the middle of the well-developed Europe. However, is it normal that in the 21st century the state can’t collect a penny of property tax? How does the state know whether there are properties, whether citizens needs sewage systems, if there’s no record of that? And the citizens have a democratically elected local government. When the state gave the local government a million euros from the state budget, just in case they need it, it could have at least made a system for collecting property tax. Of course, if said local government was any good. They would’ve built their own sewage system if the municipality had collected taxes.
Former Prime Minister Zoran Zaev stated in March 2021 that “in that place there are often expressions of violence when property tax should be collected and that law and order needs to be established”.
If I beat up the company representative, will that be “an expression of violence” or will the police come and arrest me? It’s very humane and liberal to moralize that citizens of Arachinovo are already contributing to our society because a lot of money comes in from migrant workers. Then, let them ask their relatives who live in Switzerland what would happen to them if they didn’t pay their electricity bills. Or whether their relatives in Germany are allowed not to pay taxes. In Sweden, if they caught you driving a Porsche in a pedestrian zone, in the middle of the square, you’d probably be declared insane and committed to a mental institution. And once they found out you have an expensive car and that you don’t have a bank account, they wouldn’t bat an eye and arrest you on the spot. And their governments certainly wouldn’t discuss non-payers in a special session. And no one would debate whether disconnecting illegal electricity connections was nationalism.
3 The total electricity spent must be paid for. Since the losses recorded by EVN as a result of electricity theft are a burden only for the citizens who pay for electricity, because that’s how final bills are calculated, let the Ministry of Internal Affairs solve the problem with the energy crisis that threatens us this winter.
Bekteshi, hoping we’d sympathize with the people of Arachinovo, said there were also losses in Kumanovo 16.2 percent, Tetovo 10.7 percent, Gostivar 19.3 percent, Kichevo 12.1 percent, Skopje 19.6 percent.
So, it’s simple. In cities where electricity is paid, why would residents save electricity? It’s not ok for the state to punish law-abiding payers because of the law-breaking non-payers. It’s not a matter of nationalism. It’s a matter of – money. We shouldn’t save electricity. If the police catch the thieves – no one will be under the weather. Plus, if we are to save electricity, we should save for our own sake. And not because those who don’t pay can continue to not pay. I feel stupid when the state doesn’t care for the ones who do pay, and is worried sick for the ones who don’t pay.
4 Vice Prime Minister Bojan Marichic should immediately form a team with residents from Arachinovo to deal with the EU accession talks. That team should negotiate on the most difficult issues, starting from Bulgaria, all the way to the cluster “Fundamentals”. It’d be a shame for the negotiating capacity of the people of Arachinovo went to waste in such crucial moments for our country on our way to the EU.
The fact that Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski says that “we are practically a society which is a Europe in miniature, since Europe is a community of diversity” is absolutely true when it comes to respecting ethnic rights. After all, we’re the only country in Europe where there is a municipality where one of the official languages is Romani. Or, is there another European country in which one of the official languages of the municipality is Vlach? So, as a society, it’s not a problem for us to include Bulgarians in the Constitution. The problem is that Bulgaria doesn’t recognize the Macedonian people and the Macedonian language, and the EU has accepted that as a value. It’s high time we stopped playing the fool and it’s high time we stopped feeling guilty when talking about that topic, let alone justify ourselves. The humiliation we were subjected to by the EU with Bulgaria is yet to stir up internal political tensions.
The idea that we are “Europe in miniature” doesn’t apply when we’re talking about the corrupt practices of spending public money. Starting from parking in local areas, adopting urban plans and selling state-owned plots of land, all the way to the abuse of and access to public money through public procurement tenders, we’re still very far away from Europe. All of that could be fixed very easily, without having someone from the EU impose it on you as a chapter in the negotiations. Of course, if you wanted to fix it and if you didn’t have to explain it to all those who share the profit from the corrupt deals.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
