1 Bujar Osmani couldn’t contain his excitement when Austria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Schallenberg, said that if the constitutional amendments are not adopted, Macedonia risks being put in danger of isolation. He wanted to make his point – if you don’t believe me, just listen to what my three colleagues from Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have to say, since they’ve been sent by the EU to encourage Macedonian politicians to agree on including Bulgarians in our Constitution as a condition for the start of the EU accession negotiations.

Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have never been obstacles to Macedonia’s European integration. In fact, the Czech Republic and Slovakia officially opposed the inclusion of identity and historical issues in the process during the first Bulgarian veto in 2020. We should also thank Czech Minister Jan Lipavsky for his honesty when he said that there’s no guarantee that even after the constitutional change there won’t be any new bilateral demands during the process.

And how should we react to this honest statement? No biggie. Let us change our Constitution again, just to be on the safe side, and then we’ll see if Bulgarians demand anything else.

They’re probably thinking – we, the EU, tricked Macedonia and were manipulated by allowing Bulgaria and Radev, acting as a proxy for Putin, to impose a negotiation framework that has nothing to do with the so-called European values, but let’s try to resolve the situation through a display of power. Who’ll get the short end of the stick? Naturally, it will be the weaker ones.

As if changing the Constitution is such a big problem. We’ve already changed the name of our country, but we won’t include Bulgarians in the Preamble!?

Well, at least after the visit of this trio of European friends, two issues have become clear.

First – will there be a change to the Constitution? Yes, there will.

Second – will Bulgaria have new demands after the change to the Constitution? Yes, it will.

2 Austrian Minister Schallenberg, who is now threatening us with isolation, less than two months ago, at the end of May, at a conference in Bratislava on the EU enlargement to the Western Balkans said “we are as crazy to let other countries move in”.

Speaking about how history has taught them that instability in Southeastern Europe also means instability in Central Europe, he said: “Either we manage to export and anchor for good our model of life, or we will be confronted with other models of life, they might be Chinese, Turkish, Russian, whatever, but we won’t like it”.

If that’s the case, don’t leave the region to China, Russia or Turkey. Leave it to Bulgaria. Let Rumen Radev handle the region.

Do you know what’s truly twisted about this nonsense that Bulgaria imposed on the entire EU, and that our government humbly accepted in the form of the French proposal? The fact we’ve stooped to a level where threats are coming from our friends and allies. The threats didn’t come from those who are not our allies and those whom our friends call our enemies.

3 It’s not like we’ve been integrated all this time, that we should fear being isolated in future. There can’t be a threat of isolation, considering the fact we’ve already been isolated for 30 years precisely because of this sort of behaviour of the EU. We’ve done nothing wrong to be punished.

If France hadn’t vetoed the enlargement in 2020, driven by selfish reasons because of Macron’s upcoming local elections, we could’ve ridden the wave of success of the Prespa Agreement and could’ve started our accession negotiations without leaving any room for other conditions.

Be it as it may. The negotiations themselves are not that important. What’s more important is that the Macedonian government could have used the chance for substantial changes and for better and more honourable governance. But there you go, first the French Veto, then three more vetoes coming from Bulgaria gave the government an alibi for not performing well domestically, and the opportunity to use yet another change to the Constitution as an excuse for everything.

At least Zaev was honest. He used to say: “We need a whip-master”.

Well, the whip-master has lost his footing.

SDSM had a historic chance to transform Macedonia into a normal state after the 11 years of VMRO-DPMNE’s corrupt rule, with the support of so many people who weren’t even their voters. Despite Bulgaria, despite the Covid crisis, despite the EU’s unmet expectations and their lost values, they should have, at the very least, governed honourably. What they shouldn’t have done was exactly what they did – respond to every criticism with: “Do you want us to bring Gruevski back?” Now, as the government is nearing the end of its mandate, they no longer even hide their priority. Let’s plunder whatever remains to be plundered.

That’s the great historical harm inflicted upon Macedonia after 30 years of harassment on our path to the EU.

4 When I hear the court administration employees demanding higher salaries and threatening that “you won’t be able to get a single certificate, you’ll be sorry”, I wonder:  Who are they threatening by refusing to issue certificates of no conviction? Are they threatening us? The same way customs officers are threatening us that they’ll close the borders or IRS employees that we won’t get our salaries?

They forget they’re a public service. They forget that they need to service the needs of the citizens. You should issue those threats to the party whose posters you had been putting up to get a state job.

The government has decided to reinstate the Law on solidarity tax, which will apply to the companies that made a profit of 10 million euros during the Covid crisis. At the same session, they approved a decision to increase the salaries of public administration employees by 10 percent starting from September, and to pay the annual leave allowance of 10,000 denars until the end of the year. Minister of Finance Fatmir Besimi states he’ll spend the money from the solidarity tax for development purposes. This law won’t be part of the tax system, it will be valid just this year and it will be fast-tracked so that the money comes faster. What they’re trying to say is – let’s not go through the trouble of sending inspections to your companies, pay us as much as we need until the end of the year, because the pampered public administration is mad at us for raising our salaries by 78 percent, and we don’t have any money left to give them at least a 10 percent raise. Plus, there’ll be elections soon.

The name is very fitting – solidarity tax. Solidarity with whom? With those who threaten that they won’t provide citizens with services no matter if they’re just individuals or business owners. In this country, the ones going on strikes are the people who spend the money, not the ones who earn it. It’s easy for the ones with a guaranteed state salary to threaten us: “We won’t issue certificates, you’ll be sorry”. Imagine if we threatened them by saying: “We won’t pay taxes, you’ll be sorry once you’re left without whatever salaries you now have”.

5 The Municipality of Struga has banned walking in bikinis and swimming trunks on the promenade along the banks of the river Drim and at the bazaar, and has even made and installed special traffic signs with crossed-out underwear.

The Macedonian state is dealing with the immorality of illegal constructions, usurped beaches, the burning of reeds, the platforms in the lakes. The American state is dealing with the immorality of the mayor. And what’s left for the Municipality? To protect Struga from the immorality of tourists. Plus, they’ll make some money from the new signs.

Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski