Instead of crossing it out, Milososki should put “North” in brackets


MP Antonio Milososki made a very brave move. The former head of the Macedonian diplomacy on his Twitter profile published a photograph of his pass, which he carries around his neck as part of the delegation of the Macedonian Assembly at the spring session in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, with a crossed-out “North” part of the name of the country he represents.
The modern-day ‘gemidzija’ (rebel), who chose a pen as his weapon to correct injustices in the world, wants to sell his “subversive move” as pride that needs to emerge within all Macedonians, and says: “Macedonia is the name accepted by the people, in line with the 1991 and 2018 referendums. Let’s use every opportunity we get, every notification, every document, at home and abroad, to utilize our right to self-determination and protect the dignity of every Macedonian, Milososki wrote on his social media accounts, where he shared a picture of the Council of Europe pass that was given to him.
However, he did not tell the public whether at the table in Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which he is attending along with the head of the delegation, Betaine Kitev, and MP Shpresa Hadri, stands a card with the name the Republic of North Macedonia, or he bravely went all the way, and decided to cross out the geographical addition there as well.
Such patriotic outbursts are nothing new for Milososki, who had nothing to say when his party was registered as a political entity from North Macedonia in the register of the European People’s Party, let alone propose withdrawal.
The memories are fresh, when by the end of 2014, he also posted photographs of the Olympus climb on his Facebook account where he waved the flag of Kutlesh, which, of course, triggered a negative reaction from official Athens.
Greek Foreign Ministry spokesman Konstantinos Kutras published a written statement in which he said: “We thank Mr. Milososki for visiting our country and taking a photo of himself with the Vergina sun, a Greek national symbol. However, we do not encourage him to do this his country, because it will be another violation of the Interim Accord and the Memorandum of Practice.” Kutras added that “such provocations can justify Greek attitudes to any irredentism, but they won’t help anyone,” certainly not FYROM and its people”.
Milososki’s personal outbursts were compatible with the strategic policies of his VMRO-DPMNE party, which engaged in the process of the so-called antiquisation (the renaming of the airport and the highway, the building of monuments) that was supposed to redefine our national identity. It was dangerously problematic, and in some way affected the demolition of the positions of the Macedonian side in the negotiations.
And all this might have been okay for someone’s eyes and ears if the so-called “bombs” published by the then-opposition, and current government, did not disassociate Milososki’s hardline attitude and the then-leadership of VMRO-DPMNE in terms of the name change. In that set of wiretapped conversations part of the name dispute negotiations behind closed doors and out of the UN-sponsored negotiations process were published. At a press conference announcing these talks, SDSM leader Zoran Zaev said that these are “underground bargains in which Nikola Gruevski is involved, with underground mediators of his trust in Macedonia and mediators of his trust from our southern neighbor Greece”. In a conversation between Antonio Milososki, Nikola Gruevski and Saso Mijalkov, who is included in the triple discussion through conference call, Milososki is bargaining several names.
“We can add some political reference – independent, democratic, sovereign, something, in front of the Republic, and they can choose something that would be placed there plus brackets – north or… We are, however, an independent and sovereign state and makes a certain political distinction and another component that is geographical and makes the distinction to which they insist. So, there’s a complex name, we can somehow sell it to our people at home,” he tells his then boss, who is now a political asylum seeker in Hungary, Nikola Gruevski.
When asked by Gruevski: But what it would look like if we put it in a referendum, and not to mention afterwards … Milososki responded: ” Well the problem now is that, in the short term, when we offer it to people in a referendum, they will say what is this, you talked about one reference, and now like the United Nations we have 5-6 additions and adjectives. It will be more complicated than the temporary one we have now. But if you consider it long-term, in 5-10 years, the brackets will be gone and what will remain is – independent, sovereign or something like that,” Milososki said.
Judging from the conversations, what would have been more appropriate, according to his opinion, is to put “North” in brackets in Strasbourg instead of crossing it out. Until he understands what his party’s presidential candidate Gordana Siljanovska says – that the new name is a legal fact, not only real, and that he is not an isolated individual in Strasbourg, but a representative of the country.
Until then, what can we expect from Milososki in the near future, who, in his poetic outbursts, has portrayed the codifier of the Macedonian language Blaze Koneski – the founder of our modern artistic and intellectual literature as “the dwarf from Nebregovo?” Maybe he will cross out 500 denar bills from the parliamentary salary that will be in circulation starting New Year’s… He has time to think it over.

Zaev: Milososki committed a felony

The hypocritical Milososki is just like Siljanovska and Mickoski. Citizens still remember how he secretly negotiated the name “couldn’t be more complex”, reacts SDSM on Milososki’s crossing out the word North on his pass for the spring session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
“Antonio Milososki is the same one the whole public heard when he secretly on the telephone negotiated a new name of the country, how it is acceptable for him to be a complex name, and that there is no problem to be Upper, Lower Macedonia, in brackets or without brackets, Vardar , before or after the Republic. Milososki is part of the matrix of lies, hypocrisy and fake patriotism, the same matrix to which Siljanovska belongs, which in the morning says one thing, and another in the afternoon. Milososki, Mickoski and Siljanovska are irresponsible, dishonest and hypocritical towards the citizens. Therefore, in the elections, citizens will defeat this destructive matrix and choose a real president who will represent the country,” SDSM said.