1 The government has decided to put Macedonian citizens on the back burner in order to protect the rights of citizens of the European Union. Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski has once again stated that “if it is the last thing I do, there will be no changes to our Constitution unless at least two conditions are met – guaranteed rights for Macedonians in Bulgaria, and guarantees that we will not face blockades for subjective reasons.”

This means that as long as VMRO-DPMNE remains in power, the only way we’ll experience the EU will be either as tourists, liable to harassment at Schengen borders, or as workers and students forced to obtain Bulgarian passports in order to secure legal residence.

So everything Mickoski claimed while he was in opposition, that he would renegotiate new protocols, devise a better negotiating framework, and tell everyone in the EU “the real truth”, turns out to be just a lot of words that boil down to one thing: I have no intention of working towards EU accession.

How does the Macedonian government plan to help Macedonians in Bulgaria? At the expense of Macedonians in Macedonia. We, who are blocked on the path to the EU, are expected to help Macedonians who are already in the EU. The Macedonians in Bulgari, after all, have been EU citizens since 2007. They vote in national elections in an EU member state and elect representatives to the European Parliament. They have access to European institutions where they can turn to, be heard, and seek justice. They even have rulings in their favour from the European Court of Human Rights.

It’s not that the EU itself is blameless for trampling on the very principles on which it was founded by blocking Macedonia. But the EU isn’t something we can change.

When people want to get something done, they look for and find a way. When they don’t, they constantly make excuses. In the process of demanding rights for European citizens, Mickoski has found a convenient excuse to do nothing to unblock Macedonia’s path to the EU. And when it comes to failures at home, Mickoski will always have the EU to blame.

The world is burning on all sides, everyone is looking for ways to protect themselves under the shelter of some larger family, while the ruling party in Macedonia is waiting for the EU to change the way it makes decisions or, better still, to disband altogether. But EU countries aren’t in trouble because Macedonia isn’t in the EU. We’re in trouble because we aren’t in the EU. We saw this in the most dramatic way just this week, with the crisis involving lorry drivers who were expelled from the EU as if they were illegal intruders. And that’s by no means the only case.

Instead of taking action now, when Mickoski holds absolute power, faces such a fragmented opposition, and is almost guaranteed second term, and finally, after 30 years, bringing us closer to the EU, he speaks to us as if we were sitting at a komitadji dinner. He claims he was applauded when he spoke on a panel in Davos, though he isn’t allowed to say what he was spoke about. He also attended a gala dinner with only 500 or 600 people.

His “even if it’s the last thing I do” really means – until the last Macedonian takes a Bulgarian passport in order to become part of the EU. The Prime Minister is sweeping the biggest problem we face under the rug. And that problem is – we are not in the EU.

2 Zijadin Sela of the Alliance for Albanians has submitted the law introducing the “Safe City” project to the Constitutional Court. The project centres on the installation of street cameras to detect and penalise traffic violations. He says installing cameras in Skopje, Kumanovo and Tetovo amounts to targeting only one category of citizens, with the government’s real aim being to hit their pockets.

“Can’t you see where the cameras in Skopje have been installed? In Chair, Saraj, Butel, in municipalities with an Albanian majority,” Sela said.

By the same logic, the “Safe City” project could just as easily be challenged by Macedonians living in towns where cameras haven’t been installed. Why should traffic be safer only on streets populated by Albanians, while Macedonians are left to die because there are no cameras and people feel free to ignore fines?

What exactly is Sela arguing for? That Albanians should be allowed to break traffic laws without being punished, simply because they’re Albanian? We may die in traffic accidents, but at least we’ll die as privileged Albanians.

The union organised a protest calling for an increase in the minimum salary. And, naturally, the government responded by counting the protesters, claiming there were only a handful of them, accusing them of being politically motivated, and insisting that the union leadership was in the clutches of SDSM and Levica. Nothing new. A classic move. Whoever happens to be in power accuses the unions of being aligned with the opposition.

Venko Filipche can’t organise his own party, yet we’re expected to believe he’s capable of organising union protests. He can’t even gather his own members to attend a parliamentary committee, but we’re supposed to accept that he keeps union members captive. It’s much simpler than that, people in SDSM saw someone was rebelling against the government and thought, let’s support them.

As for the number of protesters, it’d be better if the government didn’t raise the issue at all. No matter how many people were present at the protest, they weren’t people bused in from across the country, they weren’t paid daily allowances, and there were no sandwiches and juice. And when Mickoski says he isn’t opposed to raising the minimum salary, but that workers should reach an agreement with employers, what he really means is that the Union should reach an agreement with the very people that pay for the buses to party rallies and with the “socially responsible companies” that finance public events organised by VMRO mayors with concert fees that remain secret.

That’s the money they have. Either companies will spend it on buses and “social responsibility”, or on raising the minimum salary. That’s the choice. The government has, quite clearly, already made theirs.

Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski