Mickoski's statement about Bulgarian passports means "the sun is far away"
It turns out that the deepest blow to the Macedonian ethnic fabric comes in the two government mandates of the party that for 35 years has proclaimed itself the "sole defender of Macedonian unity".
1. Perhaps this statement would have been serious if the number of 130-140 thousand citizens of North Macedonia with Bulgarian passports were not senior politicians (including from his government). Does anyone believe that Kamchev (and numerous other businessmen and politicians) requested and acquired Bulgarian (dual) citizenship for social reasons?
2. Mickoski is as dispassionate towards the "currency/social" interpretation of taking passports as the "Živaljevic-journalistic bards" during the Gruevski Government's mandate, especially between 2008-14.
During that mandate of VMRO-DPMNE, the number of Macedonians with dual citizenships "exploded" after the European (then also Euro-Atlantic) integrations were stalled. It turns out that the deepest blow to the Macedonian ethnic fabric comes in the two government mandates of the party that for 35 years has proclaimed itself the "sole defender of Macedonian unity".
3. Mickoski needs to insist that "citizens will tear up Bulgarian passports as soon as we enter the EU":
A) To keep alive the thesis that taking Bulgarian citizenship/passport is a "trick" that no one thought of either in Sofia or in Brussels?
B) To tell all Macedonians in the procedure for a Bulgarian passport to get it, then "one day" when North Macedonia enters the EU, "everything will be fixed"?
It is an understatement to say only that VMRO-DPMNE imagines politics that way.
No, they just want to maintain the illusion that "the trick hasn't been read" and it doesn't backfire on us.
Because everyone knows that every registered Bulgarian by citizenship in Sofia as such is also registered in Brussels as an EU citizen.
The last illustration is the census in Albania. The "passport trick policy" led by local politicians close to VMRO-DPMNE reduced the number of Macedonians there by 2/3 compared to the last census.
That's why after three days of noise - the Skopje media "suffocated" the topic.
4. This ethno-political "Frankenstein" strategy is rounded off by Mickoski's message that he still has no intention of implementing the constitutional reforms that are the responsibility of the state voted in the Parliament.
With that, the messages from 3 A) and 3 B) are actually a summary of VMRO-DPMNE's strategy: FYROM defends itself from entering the EU until the last evicted Macedonian (with a Bulgarian passport).
In such a "strategy", Albanian passports for Albanians from North Macedonia are welcome: especially after stopping the EU integration of the RSM due to non-fulfillment of the Additional Protocol, Albania will continue the negotiations, and North Macedonia will wait for Serbia.
5. In short, Mickoski today replied to the Special Envoy of the German Government for the Western Balkans, Saracin: Danke Deutschland, Aber Nein.
And Berlin and Paris and Brussels know that this is a message from Mickoski (and Vucic), but not from the Macedonians.
(The author is a former Member of Parliament)
