1 Does anyone really believe that the cause of the fire in the area of the former furniture factory “Treska” in the Skopje Municipality of Centar will be revealed? Does anyone believe there’ll be an investigation into the cause of the fire? Even if there is an investigation, even if some banal reason is discovered, does anyone believe that it’s not a case of arson to reduce the market value of the plots on which buildings are to be build? An entire Covid hospital in Tetovo burned down, 14 people burned to death, and the investigation ended with a cable as the main suspect in the fire, and we’re now to expect an investigation into a fire without victims on a super attractive building plot in the centre of the capital. We’re not that naïve.
No one believes in the institutions as well. Neither in the state institutions, nor in the municipal ones. Speaking of urban rampage, we should change the terminology. The people the mayors call “investors” – are not investors. An investor brings about progress. An investor wouldn’t start a fire in the middle of the capital, which, fortunately, only covered the whole city in smoke. And we should stop being surprised – “Are they not ashamed!?” Ashamed!? No one in their right mind would think that the owner of a construction company would give up millions of profit just because he should be ashamed of it. Why would anyone give up the profits, when there’s no one to punish him? Neither the law can punish him, nor the electorate. Since no matter whom citizens vote for, it’s the same difference. The Government associate themselves with people they can take money from. In elections, they pretend to defend the public interest. As soon as they come into power, they defend only the interest of the so-called investors.
In all the countries we look up to, there is private property. And in all those countries private capital is protected. And in all those countries there are businessmen who work in construction. However, in those countries the state doesn’t adopt urban plans tailored to the needs of the constructors. The municipalities decide what certain areas will look like, not according to the whims of the constructors, but according to the public interest. And of course, in those countries, the constructors aren’t poor just because citizens have a good quality of life.
2 Exactly three years ago, at the beginning of April 2019, a large fire broke out in Karposh Municipality, where an illegal landfill on the banks of the River Vardar was set on fire, in the immediate vicinity of residential buildings, a petrol station, three hospitals and a luxury hotel. That was the last one in a series of fires that broke out that spring all across the country, whole forests were burning, reeds along the shores, national parks, landfills, fields… The investigation showed that the landfill in Skopje was set on fire intentionally, because the fire broke out in six places simultaneously. The day after the fire, Minister of Internal Affairs Oliver Spasovski said: “We have serious indications that the fires were set for political reasons and if we prove that, then it is a matter of serious terrorism being done to the state”.
And what happened to the terrorists? Nothing. They’ve just branched out. They went from setting illegal landfills in the middle of the city on fire to setting fire to abandoned buildings, also in the middle of the city.
3 If the late Denis Tot hadn’t been a handball player, and a foreign citizen on top of that, we would’ve never found out that the nightclub in the City Park in Skopje where he was killed, worked illegally because two months before the incident the nightclub was ordered to shut down. However, the club continued working because when the inspectors went to hand-deliver them the ban in February, they didn’t find anyone in the building. In the meantime, it was inspected by the Public Revenue Office, it was fined for not issuing fiscal receipts, although it wasn’t even allowed to operate.
The tragic thing is that there’s nothing unusual in this discovery. Just as no one was surprised when it was discovered that the bus in which 45 passengers burned to death in a road accident in Bulgaria had crossed the border a hundred times without a licence. Just as no one found it particularly sensational when it was discovered that the owner of the station which performed the technical inspection of the bus in which 22 passengers died near Laskarci was also the owner of the transport company which owns the bus. Also, no one’s surprised that the case wasn’t closed at court.
Then, why would they be surprised that a discotheque operated without a licence, in a country where the newly built state theatre in Veles operated for seven years, there were plays, employees and audiences, but it had no use permit and it hadn’t undergone commissioning. Who’s supposed to control that, when half of the public administration works in buildings from “Skopje 2014”, which still haven’t undergone commissioning?
That’s what our state is. A large illegal construction without a licence. And the worst thing is that it doesn’t bother anyone. Even if it did, who would we complain to, since even the ones we pay to be bothered by it, aren’t.
4 Why the hell are we talking about whether a discotheque in the centre of the capital had a licence to operate, when the country doesn’t even have a Constitutional Court? In fact, there is a Constitutional Court, which should consist of nine constitutional judges, but it’s not functional because it has only five. And again – it doesn’t bother anyone. Even if it did, there’s nothing we can do, since it doesn’t bother the MPs in the Assembly, who were elected to do their job, among which, to choose constitutional judges and complete the composition of the Constitutional Court.
If it occurred to someone to establish dictatorship, there wouldn’t be a Constitutional Court to decide whether that’s constitutional or not. And it doesn’t bother anyone.
5 The Government opened Pandora’s box with their populist non-market measures, first by making Sunday a non-working day, by increasing the minimum salary, by restricting the trade margins of fuel and basic food products all the way to the announcement of the Ministry of Economy that people will be allowed to buy only one bottle of cooking oil a day. Surely the Government doesn’t indent to register our names when we go to a shop to buy cooking oil, does it? Surely we won’t have to show our ID card at the cash register once we reach the daily quota of one bottle, so we wouldn’t be able to go to another shop, or come back during the second shift.
The Ministry of Economy “kindly asks retailers, in case a buyer asks to buy larger quantities of sunflower oil during the day, to immediately inform the State Market Inspectorate”. What? Will they send inspectors to check our kitchens at home, or will they perhaps chase us down the street as soon as we get out of the grocery store – put the oil back or you’ll get a fine.
Still, we have nothing to worry about if the Market Inspectorate is as efficient as it was with shutting down the discotheque in front of which the murder took place, although it was banned from operating. Inspectors will react only if, God forbid, someone is killed next to the shelves for cooking oil. They will then announce that the murder had nothing to do with their operation.
6 In a telephone conversation with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said that it was in the interest of the stability of a united Europe for each EU candidate country to respect the European values related to the rights of it citizens.
So, the countries which want to become EU member states, such as Macedonia, should respect the European values for their non-European citizens, whereas the countries which are already EU member states, such as Bulgaria, don’t have to respect the European values for their European citizens.
And the stability of a united Europe doesn’t depend on the European Bulgaria which is blocking the EU enlargement with a veto because they don’t recognize the people or the language of a neighbouring country, but it actually depends on non-European Macedonia which should recognize Macedonians as Bulgarians, that the Macedonian language is Bulgarian and should agree to include 3,500 Bulgarians in the Constitution under the dictates of European Bulgaria. It seems it’s a European value to tell other sovereign countries what to write in their Constitution and not to respect the rights of your citizens, such as the Macedonians, who are not allowed to have associations in an EU member state.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov is coming to Bitola to visit an association of Bulgarians, because Macedonia is a European country and allows all its citizens to freely form associations. Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski can’t go to Bulgaria and visit an association of Macedonians, because Bulgaria as a European country doesn’t allow Macedonians to form associations. Although there are 12 rulings by the European Court of Human Rights against them.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
