Shame has definitely died in Macedonia. The Judicial Council, in the last episode in which it had the main role, without the slightest hesitation rejected as unfounded the claims of the Dutch ambassador Dirk Jan Kopp that the new president of the Council was elected in an illegitimate procedure and therefore put the four-year project, financed by his country, on hold. .

Ambassador Jan Kopp, without diplomatic gloves and without using a wafer to wrap the message, said that the Judicial Council had become "an illegitimate body and it is very serious and painful to watch". But this is not only painful to watch, it is also painful to hear. Especially since it comes from a representative of a country that has always openly supported us, that has spent millions (the latest project, which has been put on hold, amounts to almost one million euros) of its taxpayers to help the democratization of the country. What's more, the ambassador, as usual, does not make the statement as his personal position, but always conveys the position of the country he represents.

But let's start in order. What is unfounded in the statement of Ambassador Jan Kopp? Is it that things in the judiciary are getting worse, even though the foreign partners thought there was progress and independent appointment of judges? Or perhaps in the claim that there are signs of political influence in virtually all courts? Or, that all the cases of SPO, one by one sink, and that is a very bad development?

Members of the Judicial Council can freely look at all public opinion polls and see what citizens think about judges and the judiciary. And if that is not credible to them, they can freely read the reports of the European Commission. They will surely believe them. And they don't have to read about the SJO cases, they must have heard. Or maybe they consider the claim that the Judicial Council has, in fact, become an illegitimate body, unfounded?

As a reminder, the Council is a body that has been rocked by scandals in recent months, starting with the controversial dismissal of the then president Vesna Dameva, who, like her predecessor Pavlina Crvenkovska, complained that her departure was motivated by pressures with a political background, so that in the end the third president in the last five months to become Sashko Georgiev, who immediately "disciplines" the media first. It was during his time that two members of the Council reported that their things in the office had been rummaged through.

Strangely, there was no reaction to the statement of the President Stevo Pendarovski, who clearly said that "this Judicial Council has become quite public and in that direction, the statement from the Dutch ambassador to withdraw a project that was supposed to be carried out with the Judicial Council is correct". Maybe the words are not strong enough, or money for projects is not coming from his office?

The bad and painful truth arrived as a Dutch slap that should still raise the alarm in the country, because it is not a scandal that will be forgotten and pass in a few days. On the contrary, there may be longer-term consequences related to the European integration of the country. It could very easily happen that the European path does not depend only on the inclusion of the Bulgarians in the Constitution, but that we face another veto. The day is not far when we will read the new report of the European Commission on the progress of Macedonia, and what will be in it we can immediately guess.

Ambassador Jan Kopp's reminder that the only reason the Netherlands agreed to Macedonia's EU membership in February 2020 was the law guaranteeing the processing of SPO cases is alarming enough, and now it is "painful to watch" the sinking of those cases , one by one.

And, if this is not enough of an alarm, instead of the claims that the judiciary is independent, one should also think about the "open disappointment" with the situation in the judiciary of the American ambassador Angela Ageler, who last month sent a letter to the institutions of the executive and the judiciary government in the country in which he expressed his and the USA's concerns about the situation with the judiciary.

The question is how quickly the red light of the alarm will be recognized.