Ten days after Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said that Macedonia is now a member of both NATO and the European Union, his deputy Ljupco Nikolovski made the same claim.

We are a country that’s shoulder to shoulder with the strongest. Now a member state of NATO and of the EU. Only SDSM can bring freedom, only SDSM can bring democracy, Nikolovski said during the online congress of the SDSM party held yesterday.

Despite the imposed humiliating name change, Macedonia has not yet been allowed to open EU accession talks, initially due to objections from France and now from Bulgaria. The Zaev Government was persuading the public several times that the EU has agreed on a date to open the accession talks, only to have the hopes quashed.