- After many patients have accumulated waiting to enter the specialist in Brussels, the secret diplomacy has been put into motion, looking for some effective solution, as the president once told them Siljanovska-Davkova “be inventive”, and it is on the horizon. It is contained in a non-paper by Merz and Macron, but, lo and behold, three other actors appear. Is another non-paper in play?!
- In the waiting room, in addition to patients from the Western Balkans, Moldova and Ukraine from the “Eastern Partnership” have now entered, and what are a Greek and a Bulgarian looking for there?! There are reasons for that!
And that happened – many patients gathered in the waiting room of the EU hospital. Congestion. Someone didn’t respect my appointment, someone entered out of order, someone with connections, and some are trying to enter with muscles. And there you have it. And in the waiting room of the EU, as in every waiting room, everyone is one – patients. And as such, it means medical cases, maybe healthy, but treated as sick, because whoever goes to the hospital healthy, they talk to each other, telling each other about their troubles, some give advice, some recommend quacks, masseurs and charmers and spells. Anyway, there is really something to hear from those people, but there is a rush, nervousness, who is the first to enter the specialist now because the working hours are coming to an end. So who, huh? Macedonia has been waiting for 22-23 years, Serbia is also waiting, Bosnia and Kosovo will also be waiting (in the meantime it should become a full state with all the sights, if it becomes one), then Montenegro, which has one leg in a cast, but the other is healthy, so it can go to the doctor with one leg, there is also Albania, and the newcomers from the East – Ukraine and Moldavia made the commotion, and they say she is riding a donkey towards Brussels and Armenia. Who’s left in the review queue? Will the EU become a competitor to NATO and the OSCE, as well as the Council of Europe?! Pan-European European Union. Mashala.
Well, this is how the patients talk to each other in the European hospital, but, miraculously, a Greek and a Bulgarian are stationed there as orderlies, who also have their own deputies if needed. They supervise the order, ie. the process of European integration. If someone takes a step forward, they threaten him with a veto. In Brussels they call it “vetocracy”. It doesn’t mean anything to me, but maybe that’s why I sometimes feel some inexplicable pains, which my chiropractor neighbor tells me is from the weather.
This is how regular patients talk, and what do politicians say? They confused us again, although, admittedly, they showed that they can be inventive, come up with something new that no one alive will understand until the last second of the tense movie. We will wait. Well, we have waited so long, we will wait and now to see what this non-paper is, or maybe it is already two. One Franco-German, and the other slightly expanded with three more old EU members. This non-paper says that secret diplomacy is now working at full steam around the need to somehow give these patients a chance, if not through the door, but then through the keyhole to try to enter the EU house. It is not impossible, but one is through a door, the other is through a channel. However, it is important that we go inside, eat a little of that buffet, of the European honey and butter, use that big market, and when the time comes for the European family to decide important things, we will be given a sixter-coffee and we will go out. That’s how it was in the former Yugoslavia – our politicians all day around Belgrade, and in the evening with the last JAT plane back to Skopje. We might get some sort of associate status with the EU, whatever that means. Maybe it’s a domazet after all – like a TV that has a picture but no sound. He will plow his wife’s fields, but they will not be his in the deed. Okay, there’s something important. We are waiting for it, because we have learned that a sparrow in the hand is better than a pigeon on a branch. Of course, this represents a great diplomatic success for Macedonia, because it demolished an impenetrable wall called the French frame until yesterday.
It is already taking on new contours and adapting to the new European geopolitics. And we are right there. Would that betray our expectations? Of course yes, but that is not the end of the story, there will be more surprises, ups and downs.
Why is Bulgaria in the waiting room? Let us not be surprised, she, according to her national doctrine, must be there to trouble her neighbor in every way. And it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t be because on August 1, 2017, under the shadow of Gotse Delchev, an Agreement on Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation between the Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Bulgaria was signed in Skopje. Prime Ministers Zoran Zaev and Boyko Borisov were the signatories. The agreement was signed in Macedonian and in Bulgarian, in accordance with the constitutions of both countries. Fortunately, it does not say which Cyrillic is used, Bulgarian or Macedonian. I have to be sarcastic, even mean, I just have to. Because according to that agreement, both sides should develop friendship and cooperation in accordance with the UN Charter, OSCE documents, as well as democratic principles in accordance with the acts of the Council of Europe. Here, it will be almost ten years since the signing of that agreement, and the relations are not going in the direction of good neighborliness or friendship, and even less of cooperation. Why? First, because that agreement is a slightly expanded version of the Joint Declaration of February 22, 1999, where the principle is based that neither in reality nor on paper Bulgaria and Macedonia are on the same level, that is, we should understand Bulgaria as our older brother, who we will constantly hold by the hand, and who can also kick us. An unequal subject in such an agreement goes against the basic principles of international contract law. But here, our politicians and experts strengthened that declaration at the expense of Bulgaria, and to the detriment of Macedonia, and that is now causing problems. It was a fake deal, although I believe it was all well intentioned. But the intention is one thing, and the reality is completely different. The milk ran out of the stove at that moment when Minister Bujar Osmani placed himself above the Constitution, the laws and the Parliament, as one of the foundations of the Macedonian state, so at the Second Intergovernmental Conference he signed a Protocol that is now the gallows for the nation, which will be executed on Kamen Most. He signed a Protocol even though a year before that, the Assembly voted by consensus a Resolution on the positions of Macedonia in the negotiation process with the EU.
Thus, the Macedonian Reichstag was symbolically set on fire. A big problem, but also an indication that when the rule of law does not work, such dangerous precedents are possible. Yes, the big question is why in our country no one is responsible for such arbitrary and illegal decisions, something called political responsibility, but also punishment for such behavior. There are too many examples, this one with the protocols is certainly one, as well as the perfidious games with the NATO referendum. The danger of this kind of relationship is that the legalists will be persecuted, and the politicians will walk around the country like peacocks. Bad, bad.
Let us now ask the question about the Agreement with Bulgaria. Does its existence make sense now that Bulgaria puts veto upon veto not only in the EU but also on our activities in international politics. Such is the case with the blocking of our application for associate membership in the Three Seas Initiative. That famous protocol is now being scanned with a legal dioptre both in the Constitutional Court and in the legal bodies of the European Council. What will be the outcome? Be that as it may, it is always important for politicians to respect domestic legislation, as well as the applicability of contracts. If this agreement with Sofia is unenforceable, it will either be renegotiated or terminated. Much like Musk’s or any other individual or country’s rockets, when it explodes on launch, then the mistakes are corrected. If the errors are too many, a new model is made. Belki, we will not continue with this self-destructive drive and continue to burn the mutual relations between the two peoples, which we agree have had a common history, but in no way can they find a common basis for today, and for tomorrow.
