1 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 Iotova: “When it comes to pressure, let that pressure be on the country that wants to join the EU, not on the country which has been part of the Union for so many years”. Well done! She said it to her partners loud and clear. Fitting of the position of Vice President of the country which was allied with Hitler in World War II, whose policy was based on the principle of the Aryan race. Seventy years later, the Bulgarian Vice President states that there are “superior people” and some “inferior people” that should be pressured to give up their identity in the 21st century if they want to join the “superior people”.
Apparently, the statement of Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski that “our European integration is reduced to talking about history, which practically all EU member states seem to justify” was undiplomatic. Or, it wasn’t thought out well.
The Prime Minister’s statement may sound undiplomatic, but it’s true. Maybe the other countries in the EU don’t approve of Bulgaria’s attitude towards Macedonia, but in the last two years we haven’t heard a clear statement by a leader of an EU member state that what Bulgaria is doing is unacceptable for European values. On the contrary. They’ve reintroduced in their vocabulary the Greek phrase from our agonizing experience with the name dispute – “negotiations for a mutually acceptable solution”.
Bulgaria isn’t to blame. The EU legitimizes what the Bulgarian Vice President is saying. And what she’s saying is that being an EU member state gives them the right to dispute the existence of someone’s language and nation. And if you’re not an EU member state, you have to negotiate over your existence. And in the “negotiations for a mutually acceptable solution” to prove that you exist.
How can one not think that “all EU countries justify Bulgaria’s attitude”, when Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, in Berlin, after meeting with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Prime Minister Olaf Scholz, stated that “Sofia’s position was met with understanding by the German interlocutors” and triumphantly announced “we will not let Macedonism be legitimized”. What does that mean? That Macedonians and the Macedonian language will be banned in the EU at the request of one EU member state, just because they’re inside and we’re outside. And all of that will be legitimate.
2 The Bulgarian fascist government in World War II managed to exterminate the Macedonian Jews, but failed to convert us from Macedonians to Bulgarians in 1941 to 1943. Now, the Bulgarian European government wants to correct that historic failure, so it hopes that the other 26 countries from the European Union will help it to convert Macedonians to Bulgarians.
But that’s not how things go in the 21st century. Even if they unload a whole truck in front of my door with evidence that my ancestors were Bulgarian, that their surnames were Bulgarian, that they wrote with Bulgarian letters, it won’t change the fact I’m Macedonian, that I write in Macedonian, using Macedonian spelling, in Cyrillic, with letters of the Macedonian alphabet.
It’s undeniable that Bulgaria is still our enemy country. That’s why I don’t understand why we’re wasting our time in the first place, dealing with an enemy which confirms that on a daily basis by looking for a “mutually acceptable solution” whether we’re Macedonians and whether we speak Macedonian. Since, that’s the essence of the dispute.
You can’t tell who’s crazier. Is it Bulgarians for asking Macedonians to prove that they exist or Macedonians for getting involved in a process of having to prove they exist?
It’s one thing that we’re wasting our time, we’re used to waiting, Macedonia is timeless. However, the other 26 EU member states have been maturing democratically for 65 years, since the founding of the European Economic Community, and for 29 years since its upgrade to the European Union. Why are they wasting their time after Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, in a time when even some of their leaders understood the fact that the issue of the stability of the Western Balkans is an issue of the stability of the European Union? I can’t believe it that even Serbian priests saw the need for regional stability more rationally than the official Bulgarian state policy.
Hey you, we’re here. We’re here, we’re Macedonians, we speak Macedonian, we write books in Macedonian, we have media in Macedonian, we sing in Macedonian, we have plays in Macedonian, we shoot films in Macedonian… and I don’t want to have to prove to anyone that I exist. It’s stupid. Don’t waste my time with nonsense.
In the 21st century, Putin is the only one who felt like proving to Ukrainians that they are Russians and that their Ukrainian language is Russian.
3 The fact that the Mayor of Skopje Danela Arsovska has been so dedicated to refusing to answer journalists’ questions, seven months since taking office, is very dangerous. It’s also dangerous that she didn’t show up at a session to answer councillors’ questions. I don’t get it how the chairman of the Council of the City of Skopje Trajko Slavevski and the councillors let her get away with it.
However, the most dangerous thing is that with this behaviour she abolishes civilizational practices not only of polite communication, but also practices of responsible and accountable behaviour of a public servant. Being stubborn with journalists and no one knowing what she works is unacceptable, except when she herself decides what to say and where to say it. No other mayor of Skopje has treated the public like that. On top of that, when she does choose where to appear she presents herself as a victim because “they kept attacking her” and “they kept ruining her day”. It’s not like we communicate with her about private matters. We communicate with her on behalf of the citizens of the capital – both the ones who voted for her and the ones who didn’t.
And the thing that’s even more dangerous than the already very dangerous situation of a public servant dodging questions is that her behaviour is laughed at. It’s not funny at all when someone who spends public money says “Because I can”. Laughing at her behaviour means you’re in fact normalizing it. And if bad practices are normalized they easily become a habit.
4 The post of Minister of Digital Transformation in the new Slovenian Government will be held by Emilija Stojmenova Duh, who moved from Vinica to Maribor in 2002 to finish high school.
The post of Director of the Public Administration Reform Team in the Cabinet of Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic is held by Marta Arsovska – Tomovska, the former Macedonian Minister of Information Society and Administration.
Two electrical engineers from Macedonia will work on the digitalization of public services of two countries in the region. The more digitalized, the more efficient the administration. More digitalization, more transparency. More digitalization, less administration. More digitalization, less corruption.
Unlike here, where civil services are still asking for a stamp on a bank deposit slip. You’ll do everything online and then you’ll wait forever at the counter for their break to be over and get done what’s already been done. And we’ll now wait for the strike of Registry Office clerks to be over, because apparently they’d become radicalized. The same people who issued over 20,000 documents with incorrect personal data in just one year.
Who knows how many hundreds and thousands of Emilijas and Martas have moved abroad to improve the living conditions of the citizens of other countries. If they had stayed here, they wouldn’t have been allowed to build a digitalized system which would decrease the number of public administrators, which would reduce the possibility of error and would reduce corruption “face to face”, and they would now still be wasting their time with us in some stuffy hallway, humbly waiting in front of a locked door that reads: “I’ll be right back”.
Slovenia has Emilija, Serbia has Marta, and we elected Danela. Everyone elects according to their needs.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
