1 The last Berlin Process Summit for the Western Balkans will be remembered by the picture of our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bujar Osmani, casually walking alone in the rain in Berlin, wearing bright trousers. The Berlin street looks really nice on him in the photo he posted on Facebook.

It’s not like I don’t believe in the European Union. I’ve spent my entire professional career having faith in the EU. I also believe in Germany’s sincere intentions. If nothing else, official Berlin is at least pursuing proactive policies to facilitate the accession of the Western Balkans to the EU. However, I’m tired. Actually, I’m not even tired. Simply, when I hear some European leader say for the hundredth time that “The European Union is not complete without the Western Balkans”, I strain to maintain my enthusiasm for the EU after everything that’s happening in reality, where on the topic of Macedonia’s integration it’s actually Bulgaria who’s ruling with the EU. A member state denies the existence of a neighbouring nation, and the EU has accepted that as a criterion in the enlargement process. That fact killed my enthusiasm.

We’ve been hearing the sentence “The EU is not complete without the Western Balkans” since the EU Thessaloniki Summit in June 2003. That sentence has been snowballing ever since it was officially promoted as EU policy at the Summit organized by the member state which hindered the process of Macedonia’s integration in the EU the most, because of the bizarre name dispute that they lost in 2011 at the International Court of Justice in The Hague but didn’t want to implement the verdict.

Still, we managed to work things out with Greece. We entered NATO, EU enthusiasm was back. However, now it’s Bulgaria’s turn to use the European Union as a powerful tool to stop our development. And it’s using that tool successfully.

In 2014, Berlin came up with the Berlin Process. This year, Paris came up with the European Political Community. How many other consolation prizes, Summits for the Western Balkans and alternatives to the EU will they come up with to keep us fit while we listen to their promises of a European future? All those Facebook and Instagram photos, all that tweeting and handshaking and the same sentence that “The EU is not complete without the Western Balkans” being repeated a hundred more times – all of that will be in vain. Out of all the promises, the only thing left is to change our Constitution. Because that’s what Bulgaria wants.

2 While Germans in Berlin are rejoicing in the success of persuading the leaders of the Western Balkans to sign an agreement to make crossing the borders easier, in Sofia they can’t stop coming up with new provocations that would stop our path to the EU. Our government officials act with caution to give Bulgarians a warm welcome in case they accidentally make them mad, while in Sofia they welcome our mistakes. They sent Vice President Iliana Iotova to Bitola on the day of the city’s liberation from fascism to open a hunting lodge for “the Bulgarian hunting traditions from Tsar Samuil’s period until now” and to visit the tombs of Bulgarian soldiers from the First and the Second World War in Bitola and Prespa, accompanied by guards. Our partisans are turning in their graves with such speed that we could generate electricity.

Apparently, the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is very concerned that our Assembly passed a law prohibiting associations and foundations from being named after fascists and their collaborators. We’re very concerned that European Bulgaria promotes associations and foundations named after fascists and their collaborators. And the European Union says to us – You just change the Constitution.

Changing the Constitution is not a problem. We’ve changed all sorts of things for the EU, so why would it be a problem to change the Constitution for the hundredth time. There were 3,504 citizens who declared themselves as Bulgarians in the census, so if we have to, we could list them in the Preamble individually, with their name and surname, if that’s the final obstacle for our accession to the EU. The problem is that the second we change our Constitution, Bulgaria will present new demands to the EU, persisting in their policy of denying the Macedonian identity. The European Union is Bulgaria’s chance to achieve what it has failed to achieve through war for centuries and Bulgaria will use it every step of the way.

3 Until now, I’ve faced around a hundred denials, reactions, requests to retract an article and lawsuits for a published article, but this week it was the first time someone has asked me to withdraw a photo report. Public Enterprise “Communal Hygiene” asked us to retract an article with photographs which document the rubbish scattered at the very centre of the capital – Macedonia square, on the banks of Vardar and the pedestrian zone on Macedonia Street. They threatened to file a lawsuit if we don’t apologize within 24 hours for taking pictures of the rubbish they hadn’t collected in the centre of Skopje.

What should we write in the apology? That Skopje is clean? Either we have different standards of what is clean and what is dirty, or on the planet the local government lives on, the centre of our capital is very clean.

In that case should we do as they please? Should we apologize for the fact Skopje is dirty? Should we be ashamed? Since, they’re shameless.

We’ll be waiting the whole weekend to see whether the leader of VMRO-DPMNE Hristijan Mickoski decides to accept Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski’s invitation to attend the leadership meeting scheduled for Monday, or whether he’ll refuse. If he’s going, why is he going, if he isn’t going, why isn’t he?

When he just wants to be in the spotlight, and the media covers his statement in a serious fashion, it occurs to me that this is the same Hristijan Mickoski who posted a photo on Facebook where he’s lying naked on an operating table with a band-aid on the right side of his neck with the entire medical team that removed a fatty tissue standing behind him, on the very night when the vote of no confidence in the Government failed in the Assembly.

When I think of that photo, I’m immediately filled with optimism about the outcome of the leadership meeting on Monday. Mind you, this is not just any leader, so it won’t be just any leadership meeting.

Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski