With Zaev and Dimitrov, the EU is just a distant dream

Aleksandar Nikoloski
Vice President of VMRO-DPMNE
Unfortunately, there are serious announcements these days that Macedonia will not receive a date for starting negotiations with the EU again this year. The announcements are that despite the fact that Zoran Zaev and Nikola Dimitrov signed a capitulating agreement for the complete disfigurement of Macedonia, renaming the country and erasing the Macedonian national identity, there will again be no date for the start of EU membership negotiations. And let’s not forget that the main promise of this couple of politicians was a better life reflected through EU membership. I do not underestimate the role of NATO here, but we all know that NATO members are also less developed countries in Macedonia, and that the elite club of well-being is still the EU. What kind of national humiliation is to change your name, and still the EU to remain a distant dream is something that many future generations will write about.
Here I would like to remind you that I was the first of the Macedonian politicians who announced in November last year that if Macedonia does not deliver in the reforms field, it will not get a date for starting accession negotiations with the EU in 2019, just as it did not get a date in the 2018, although Zaev and Dimitrov signed to change the name of Macedonia. At that time, on these same pages in Nezavisen Vesnik/Independent daily newspaper in my column entitled “Dark Scenarios” I wrote: “I want to publicly warn through these lines that if Macedonia continues with this low level of implemented reforms, unfortunately, in June next year will not get a date for starting negotiations for EU membership. Regardless of the name change, the low level of reform implementation is currently the main brake for Macedonia to move towards the EU.” In the same column of November 21, I added that “I want you to keep in mind for the record that I warned seven months earlier that if Macedonia continues with a low level of reform, although with a changed name in the North Republic of Macedonia, humiliated and on its knees, it will not get a start date to negotiate in June 2019. I will be happiest if the government and Zaev proves me wrong with their work, but this has not happened. It will be good for Macedonia. But as things stand now – highly unlikely!”

Three months later, the French Minister for European Affairs came to the country carrying with the same message, which confirmed what I warned about. Nathalie Loiseau said in an interview that the accession negotiations will only be opened if Macedonia delivers in the part of the reforms and meets all criteria. She said that the name change was not enough, that reforms were needed. She confirmed that for France, as well as for several other influential EU member states, it was much more important for Macedonia to be a country with a strong rule of law, reduced corruption and a stable economy that is growing, rather than the kinds of agreements it will reach with Greece. In the same interview, she said that there was not enough time, and the expectations are great and that the government has almost failed to deliver reforms so far, noting that they need to be implemented in reality, not just written on paper. And she stressed that the Prespa Agreement was not enough.

This is the clearest signal sent to Zaev’s government that it does not do its job and does not deliver results. Something we already strongly warned about. Although the time is short, it is now up to the government to deliver. But the essential question is whether it can and wants to deliver. Everything that is done in reality is in the opposite direction. Hiring hundreds of officials’ relatives, completely suspending the rule of law, prolonged political cases, physical attacks against political prisoners in jail, a proposal for reforming security services that is extremely questionable, no investigations, let alone accusations against people from the current government.
All of these are steps backwards and Zaev must be aware that someone is carefully noting them. And, the EU requirements are in the opposite direction, they were written in a report from the EU Council last June and are very simple. They are reduced to: judicial reform and proactive investigations, indictments and final judgments in cases of corruption and organized crime, including high-level, intelligence and security reform and public administration reform.

It is in VMRO DPMNE’s interest for Macedonia to get a date for starting negotiations with the EU this year and finally start negotiations. We are in favor of this, above all because of the Macedonian citizens’ well-being. The EU is our strategic commitment as a party. But we do not see it. Today, the question arises legitimately whether the excuse for rejecting our request for early parliamentary elections was honest. Their excuse was that reforms need to be implemented that will bring us to date for the start of negotiations. I publicly ask – what reforms have been implemented? Which ones? Can they say at least one?

The end of everything is the insistence of the Government, the insistence of Zaev, Dimitrov and Osmani to be in the same group with Albania, and even the acting Foreign Minister of Albania came to an official visit to our country, and our government informs that they are coordinating with Tirana to get a date for negotiations with the EU. I warned of entering the package with Albania last spring. At that time, the Government told me that it was all made up and nonsense. That “nonsense”, unfortunately, was confirmed a few months later in June 2018. Here I am, warning yet again – if we stay in the same package with Albania we will never, and I mean never, start our accession talks.

The strategy must be in two directions – first, a strong commitment to reform and delivering visible and sustainable results; and second, separating our country from the package with Albania. From today’s perspective, I think that Zaev, Dimitrov and Osmani will not deliver any of these two. That is why Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova’s victory in the presidential election is necessary in order to lead to the fall of Zaev’s government and snap general elections, which will bring a new government by autumn, headed by VMRO-DPMNE, which will catch up with problems and reforms, and will try the EU summit in December to deliver reforms and get a start date for negotiations.