Bakiu: The EU wants us to be like Norway or Switzerland

Expert political leaders in the country have divided views on what the future of Macedonia will be in or outside the Euro-Atlantic institutions.
Analyst Bashkim Bakiu believes that the European Commission asks Macedonia to have the development that Norway and Switzerland had in terms of fulfilling the reforms.

“To be precise, the EU does not want Russian and a Chinese influence in Macedonia, something that was obvious during the rule of VMRO-DPMNE with DUI, but today’s government has not done anything in terms of reforms. We should not even have to take the start of EU accession negotiations with such euphoria since the history of negotiations indicates their different duration. For example, negotiations with Slovenia lasted for 7 years, negotiations with Slovakia lasted for six years, while the negotiations with Montenegro are still ongoing. This means that if we do not implement the required internal reforms, we will be far from the EU. However, the start of the negotiations has its own bright side as it creates a kind of supervision over Macedonia. In reality, the EU requires us to have the development that Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, countries that are highly developed and where the rule of law or the Copenhagen criteria are functioning, but are not EU members,” said Bakiu.

The owner of the daily “Lajm”, Fejzi Hajdari, told Nezavisen/Independent newspaper that thanks to the agreement reached on the name dispute with Greece, Macedonia, as never before, is close to its final strategic goal of becoming part of the European family and part of NATO.
“Realistically, after the agreement with Greece on the name, Macedonia is very close to becoming an EU member, unlike the time when VMRO-DPMNE and DUI, as political subjects, supported provocative policies against Greece. The same parties are becoming weaker and weaker every day, and have no capacity to stop this process. In my opinion, the fact that the Macedonian side makes great strides towards the EU, unlike Albanians. The Macedonian side visibly develops, builds, invests, while the Albanian side of the country remains resembling a ghetto, where roads are being built over the old ones, new illegal landfills are being formed, while local authorities do nothing to deal with these problems. To change this situation, the Albanian side should develop at the same pace, and we need to give up the way of thinking that it is someone else’s fault, that is, we need to clear our own yard in order to get closer to the EU,” said Haidari.