1 It doesn’t feel nice to listen to the recording in which Speaker Talat Xhaferi adresses some parliamentary clerks in an arrogant and vulgar manner. The command “go, go away!” was given with a commanding tone, as if he returned to his youth when he was a senior officer in the Yugoslav People’s Army. Swearing suits neither his office, nor his age. That’s why it’s difficult to find an excuse for his actions, no matter how many reasons he had to react so fiercely.

Still, just one sentence enhanced by a juicy swear word gives precise insight into the systemic problem with the inefficient administration, when Talat says: “All of you here are getting a state salary and dare to fuck around. Go! Go away!”

How many of us have feel like swearing when we face an incapable pen-pusher appointed by the party, no matter if it’s at a municipal or at a state level, where they’re supposed to make sure we get things done for the salary they take? How many times have we felt powerless when someone used the power of the party, sucking up to them so they’d get employed and then says to you: “wait, if he comes at 8:30”, or “he’s on break”, “he went to the market to buy something, he’ll be back any minute now”, “take it easy, can’t we have a smoke”, and to crown it all, “it is what it is, what can I do”,… And you don’t have the strength to snap at them: “Go! Go away!”, and you humbly hold your tongue because you know that tomorrow he’ll taunt you again and no one will do anything about that.

2 Two years ago, when the Covid broke out, we ran out of passport forms. Some civil servants hadn’t ordered them on time. Last year we ran out of registration plates. The manufacturer was being replaced; some civil servants delayed the tender. This year, we’re out of vehicle registration certificates.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs says that there are certificates. But, they didn’t requisition them. Some civil servants didn’t requisition them. And who’s to blame for that? Nobody. Last year they claimed they had registration plates. The fact is that there were registration plates for the ones who didn’t need them. If you don’t need them you don’t ask for them. However, the mystery is how come we run out of them exactly when we need them – be it passports, registration plates or registration certificates.

When it comes to the registration plates, you’d say – all right, you can’t really predict how many new or new used cars will be bought in a Covid crisis. But last year we ran out of report cards. Didn’t they know how many children were enrolled in school? This year, there’s less than a month until the end of the school year, and one of these days, we’ll find out if they’ve counted them.

So what have we learned after each of these crises caused by the negligence of civil servants? Nothing. It’s the same old story every year. No one can do anything to them.

3 At a press conference in Tirana there were two officials – a minister from Albania and the Minister of Economy Kreshnik Bekteshi from Macedonia. An Albanian journalist had a question for the guest from Macedonia so she started by saying: “I have a question for the Macedonian Minister…” What scared Bekteshi so much that he had to start explaining: “Sorry, I’m a minister from North Macedonia, I’m not Macedonian…” You can’t really say he was lost in the translation and got confused by the adjectives, since the question was asked in Albanian. Is he so sensitive to the word “Macedonian” that he’s afraid people in Albania would think Bekteshi was Macedonian?

Did the Minister of Economy go to Albania as a representative of the country or as a representative of an ethnic group? The journalist didn’t ask him to answer the question as an Albanian, but as a Macedonian minister. Will he resign from the Macedonian government in the middle of Tirana? Since it’s certain that he’s not an Albanian minister. In fact, he even receives his salary in Macedonian denars as a Macedonian minister, not as an Albanian in the Government.

I wonder how come he didn’t start explaining to the journalist about the percentage of Albanians in Macedonia. And as a solution to any dilemma over his nationality, if anyone in Albania even cares about that, he should have given the Albanian public samples for DNA analysis. Next time he goes abroad to represent Macedonia, he can take some swabs so he’d be ready to give material for analysis at any moment at a press conference. He’d be completely ready for questions by journalists.

4 French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed the creation of a parallel European Political Community. He said that “instead of lowering the membership criteria, it is better to create a parallel community that would be attractive to countries that want to join the EU, but also to countries that have left it.” He talked about Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, but the Western Balkans are also here, with Macedonia leading the way as the country most persistent and dedicated in waiting.

So, Macron proposes that there should be two European Unions – The Real EU and the AliExpress EU.

And why would 27 countries even waste their time debating the future of the EU of the ones who want to join the EU? And why would they debate over the countries that have already left it? Does the UK care about the AliExpress EU, considering they left the Real EU of their own accord? Why don’t EU members use the Eurovision Song Contest model? They can upgrade it to the EU enlargement foreign policy. There, five countries, the founders of Eurovision, no matter how bad their entry was, go straight to the grand final. The rest of us will clown around at semi-finals, we’ll wave flags, we’ll shout “thank you Europe, I love you all” and we’ll be happy if we manage to make it to the final.

We already know who Bulgaria will vote for.

Albanie, douze points. Macédoine du Nord, zéro point. Merci.

5 The coordinator of the VMRO-DPMNE parliamentary group, Nikola Micevski, said: “We decided to organize an active blockade because the country is in a serious crisis with four active crises.”

And how do VMRO-DPMNE help the country to deal with the four active crises as a responsible opposition? They create a fifth.

Translation by Nikola Gjelincheski