The EU bids us farewell


Slobodanka Jovanovska

“Misery” was the reaction of a European diplomat to the conclusion of the EU member states with which, instead of giving us a date, as they promised, they announced they will “revisit” the topic. Everyone was praising us, no one was against Macedonia, but obviously they were not “in favor” because behind the empty rhetoric was the fact that the decision on the negotiations was not only postponed, but the conclusion we received yesterday does not give us the hope that there will even be a date, because the conclusion is worse than it was last June.
The fact that was most defeating was that the countries listed among those opposed to setting a date for accession talks are, with a few exceptions, the founders of the European Union, the enlargement countries, and now the main ones who have put the brakes on it. No matter how uneducated we are when it comes to games at international level, no matter how politically blind and incorrigible optimists we are, it is clear that the decision in Luxembourg was not avoided due to technical, even political reasons, but rather a strategic one. Politico yesterday described it using the words – the enlargement process is nearing an end.
This is mostly confirmed by the ridiculous and humiliating attempts of the EU to sell us some technical reasons for the postponement, until someone who hasn’t made any promises to Macedonia (Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the new European Commission) comes to power, so he can elegantly finish the job involving the date of our country. Which could be destabilized until then by such politics by the European Union, so those who refused to support us yesterday can have a real, and not a ridiculous excuse for it. Yesterday, the EU turned our democratic victory into an international defeat, showing once again that it was only using and abusing the region, and that it has no intention to truly integrate it. Even Montenegro, which opened almost all the chapters (has only one left), has no clue when it would become a member of the European Union, and it has been negotiating for seven years now. The talk in the European halls is that the idea of ​​a new cooperation with the region has already been rolled out, and it also hinted yesterday by Politico, quoting a French official who most directly said that enlargement should not be the only form the EU cooperates with the region. The latest strategy of French President Emanuel Macron was the first indicator of that, as it was a transparent attempt to offer us something worthy enough, and please us because the negotiations are not starting any time soon.
Considering the fact that the date for accession talks is not a guarantee for joining the EU, and that the member states can at any moment drag it on with a new political invention process, this feisty struggle not to set a date for negotiations to Macedonia shows that what stands behind the decision – is much larger. That while we were sleeping or dreaming, Macron has been doing his job and has gained a lot more support for the blockade of Macedonia compared to last June, when the EU promised us a decision this June, and later promise that they will decide in September, now it’s October, and in the end write down in the conclusion that they will actually just revisit the subject.
What is most defeating is that this behavior of the EU affects the internal situation in a country that is part of Europe, and has been abused by it, and has been taking political blows for three decades. Even Bulgaria’s attack (of Ekaterina Zaharieva) about Goce Delchev and to which country he belongs to, now gets a greater meaning, because someone obviously asked Sofia, for the sake of a higher interest, to help in creating a bad case out of the “impressive example” in the region. And moreover, we cannot even determine who stood behind the blockade of our country, because everyone is pointing their finger at someone else. They praised the Prespa Agreement so much earlier that now, when we see the effect, we are terrified of any kind words coming from the EU. In October, they will find yet another technical reason or procedure to re-establish the conclusion that they will revisit the topic, until we all forget that there was even a proposal for the country to start accession talks with the European Union.