1 Is there any other country with more high-profile individuals on the U.S. blacklist than ours? Among those the State Department has designated for significant corruption, we find two of our former prime ministers: Ljupcho Georgievski and Nikola Gruevski; two of our deputy prime ministers: Kocho Angjushev and Artan Grubi; two mayors: Ramiz Merko and Stevcho Jakimovski; and to top it all off, our former head of the secret service, Sasho Mijalkov. The crème de la crème.
We’re leaders in the region, perhaps even beyond it. Can we go any further than this? And what does that say about us? That we have high standards for electing our leaders.
2 Former Deputy Prime Minister Artan Grubi, for whom an international arrest warrant has been issued following a court order for his detention as a suspect in a crime involving the State Lottery, was, coincidentally, not found at home by the police. Completely coincidentally, he had urgent business in Kosovo at precisely the time he was under suspicion. Completely coincidentally, when crossing the border at “Blace,” the cameras used by the police officers checking passports weren’t working. Completely coincidentally, Grubi was given a ride by the honorary consul to Kosovo, because, even while serving as deputy prime minister, he didn’t have a car, and his neighbours would often lend him theirs. And, completely coincidentally, at the exam moment Grubi appeared at the border crossing, the police officer wasn’t looking at his computer and didn’t see the order for his detention.
It was similar in November 2018 when Nikola Gruevski called us from Budapest. Completely coincidentally, the police didn’t find him at home. Completely coincidentally, the police officers responsible for monitoring him didn’t see him leave the apartment. Completely coincidentally, the police searched the garage of VMRO-DPMNE, just in case he had hidden in the boot. Completely coincidentally, he was given a ride by a diplomat from the Hungarian embassy. Completely coincidentally, the footage from the cameras at the border crossing in Albania was conveniently erased. Completely coincidentally, there’s no record of how he crossed from Albania to Montenegro, then to Serbia, before entering Hungary. And completely coincidentally, there’s no court ruling to the investigation into his escape. Who knows if there even is an investigation at all.
Kosovo is not yet a member of the Open Balkans, but it’s certainly enjoying the benefits of open borders. While citizens continue to wait in lines to cross the borders, and trucks are left waiting for customs clearance, the benefits of the Open Balkans are best felt by high-ranking officials under investigation or already convicted of significant corruption. It’ a Balkan Schengen for the Balkan elite.
3 DUI stated that it has always been committed to accountability and transparency, and that’s precisely why, while in government with SDSM, it proposed a law that was supposed to prevent those on the American U.S. blacklist from participating in elections and public procurement processes. However, the MPs from VMRO-DPMNE and VLEN blocked the adoption of that law, and now DUI is accusing them of being “hypocrites who claim moral superiority.”
I honestly don’t know what genre this belongs to. DUI talks about hypocrisy and morality, yet their Struga Mayor, Ramiz Merko, was placed on the U.S. blacklist, and they didn’t replace him. And now, they have the audacity to blame VMRO-DPMNE and VLEN that Artan Grubi escaping justice.
VMRO-DPMNE, SDSM, and DUI traditionally attack, insult, and blame each other, acting as if they are each other’s greatest enemies. However, they are the only holy trinity that’s functioned in the country since the 2001 conflict. They can’t agree on matters of the highest state interest. But when it comes to protecting a high-ranking official, whether convicted or under investigation, from prison, they’ll join forces to arrange the coincidences, no matter which one of them is in power.
4 Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski returned from his trip to Brussels super pleased. In an interview with the public broadcaster MTV, which he gave in Brussels, he went on and on about what he said to “this prime minister” and what he said to “that prime minister,” repeating for the hundredth time that “the EU is starting to hear a different attitude than the humble and submissive one of the previous government over the last 7 years.”
What’s the point of going to Brussels as a prime minister for a meeting with the EU and then giving an interview to the public broadcaster MRTV, with the crew you’ve brought with you from Skopje? So you’d tell the domestic public what you said in Brussels. So we wouldn’t hear what Brussels had to say to you, as the prime minister of a country trying to find a solution for the dispute with another EU member state. If the prime minister really has something important to say, why doesn’t he arrange an interview with a Belgian, French, German, Dutch, Italian, or even a Bulgarian television station, so that the public there can hear the Macedonian government’s position and understand how much injustice we’ve suffered on our path to the EU. We already know the Government’s position. And we know the EU’s position. It’s laid out in the negotiating framework, which states that, in order for the negotiations with the EU to begin, Bulgarians must be included in the Constitution. We haven’t heard anything new.
“A lot of nice things were said, it was all very direct and open, and what I take away from this, as an emotion, as a feeling, is that the member states themselves are truly tired of explaining why this process should not be bilateralised, but Europeanised instead,” said Mickoski.
The Macedonian public didn’t find out what those “nice things” were. And I’m not exactly sure that the negotiating framework can be changed with emotions and feelings. What Mickoski is referring to when he says the process shouldn’t be bilateralised, but Europeanised instead, is actually the essence of the problem. Since the moment the negotiating framework was adopted, the process was no longer bilateralised. It was Europeanised instead.
I don’t like that at all, but, unfortunately, it is the reality. That’s why I’m gradually losing the optimism Prime Minister Mickoski spreads regarding the EU. The two most important countries, the engines driving the Union, France and Germany, are preoccupied with their own problems. Macron is barely managing to hold his government together, Scholz has lost a vote of confidence and Germany is heading towards early elections.
Both of them must be deeply focused on finding a creative solution for us. Since they can’t seem to find one for themselves.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
