Radmila Sekerinska: It’s important that no one is untouchable

As a leading party in the ruling coalition, do you feel responsible for the dissatisfaction created especially with the personnel policies and the appointing of individuals close to the previous government?
– The number of those is really small, but I understand the dissatisfaction. However, I hope that the public realizes that if the Government runs a policy that “you are either with us, or with no one”, we will only become an upgraded version of VMRO-DPMNE. When we presented our commitments that the party must be separated from the state, we believed in them. We try to adjust where the public is right with the criticism. And this shows a new political climate in Macedonia. Such a policy would only suit Gruevski and his clique. He wants anyone who was part of the former structure to treat him as a personal enemy, in order to get wider support. And make everyone think this is a battle against them. That way, we are just helping the creators of the regime.
You were Vice Prime Minister for European Affairs when we received the EU membership invitation, 13 years later we have a status quo on that path. Do you see the opportunity to finally get a date for negotiations?
– In front of my eyes is Dar-Mar’s caricature, on which 2010 stood as the year in which we hoped to prepare for membership. It is 2018 now, but we have not yet started the negotiations. It’s a source of much anger and a lot of disappointment that Macedonia missed out on such an opportunity. When we started working on the EU candidacy in 2003, there were criticisms that we should not create false euphoria. Despite that skepticism and those problems that were also great at the time, Macedonia made a spectacular breakthrough in just three years. And I was convinced that there was no government that could break that success. We built a team, we built trust with the Europeans, but as we witnessed – no success is eternal. Macedonia has been going backwards in the past 12 years, and many of the people we trained and promoted as staff for the well-being of Macedonia lost their faith and left, or were expelled. The project and the team, which was capable of carrying out such a project, were ruined. Now we are starting again. But I am convinced that with the same level of political determination and focus, Macedonia will be able to start negotiations. That’s why we say that 2018 could be the year of new chances for Macedonia. We cannot turn back time, but we can re-create chances.
During that period, when you were in the previous SDSM government, your coalition partner was also DUI. Can you make a comparison between the then and the current partnership, given the impression that you are forced to make major concessions for peace in the coalition, such as the law on languages?
– Regarding the cooperation with DUI, we said that the same rule that applies to us, should be valid to them – that no one is untouchable. And we have not violated this principle so far. About the law on languages ​​we had the view that this issue is not a request by DUI, but that it should be resolved for Macedonia and its citizens. We also said this throughout our campaign. This was the result of our will to bring Macedonia out of the mud of ethnic bargaining. Albanians did not vote for SDSM by chance, it is not by chance that SDSM is the only party for which members of all ethnic communities voted. Despite the obstructions, the law was passed, but VMRO-DPMNE blocked it with 36 thousand amendments that in principle are not related to constitutionality. If VMRO-DPMNE was sure and wanted the law to be in compliance with the Constitution, it was supposed to allow its adoption sooner, after which it would have gone to the Venice Commission and we would have had the Commission’s opinion today. VMRO-DPMNE’s goal is clear – to show that it can block what it had previously agreed with DUI. With such instruments, VMRO-DPMNE prevented the six-month transfer of power. We consider the cooperation with DUI as very constructive.  There are no questions about which we have so far had great differences, and if we have solved them. We do not like all their personnel decisions, but they do not like some of our people as well. It is important that both sides respect the principle that no one is untouchable. We have shown that in our cases with our officials. We will do the same with DUI officials. Zaev and Ahmeti reached an agreement on this at the very beginning.