EU Ambassador to Macedonia David Geer acknowledged that he was wrong to meet with DUI party leader Ali Ahmeti in a Government office in December.

Ahmeti is prone to using the Ministry for Political System, led by his protege Artan Grubi, as his office in Skopje. The large newly built office space was meant to house the Anti-Corruption Commission and other institutions, but Grubi and Ahmeti took it over. As a show of DUI’s growing force and takeover of public institutions, Grubi adorned it with Albanian national symbols, used it to host birthday celebrations for Ahmeti and even impromptu football matches in his office with other DUI party officials.

Ambassador Geer said that the site of the meeting was a mistake and that only Government meetings should take place in that space. In the past, Western diplomats were outspoken in criticism of use of public institutions for partisan goals, as well as of corruption. But with SDSM and DUI in power, this criticism has been largely absent, especially in the case of DUI, which is involved in numerous and increasingly brazen corruption scandals.