Comment by French Ambassador to Macedonia Christian Thimonier raised worries that the Boki 13/Katica Janeva scandal will bury the chances for the opening of EU accession talks in October. France has opposed the opening of accession talks in June on the grounds that the EU is getting too broad, can’t make decisions any more, and no new accession should happen until the Union has deepened its existing institutions.

The official reason for postponing the accession talks, put forward mainly by the Netherlands, is that Macedonia and Albania need to show more results in the area of rule of law and a track record of fighting corruption. A specific request made from Macedonia was to make the deeply flawed and politicized Special Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) permanent. Instead of doing that, the Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva gave all the possible arguments to the critics of enlargement, when it was announced that she was likely involved in a high profile racketeering group that extorted millions from businessmen who were being prosecuted.

In an interview with Alsat TV, Ambassador Thimonier expressed his shock over what happened.

For us, it was a shock, we were appalled, just like the rest of the Macedonian public. It is difficult to predict all the possible outcomes at this moment. We consider this to be a very important and difficult case, because when we did the Przino accord, the diplomatic representatives, we were all present during the creation of the Special Prosecutor’s Office. It was an important element to restore and renew the credibility of the country and the judiciary. Now, from the accusations we can conclude that this is either a slander which must be withdrawn to protect the person involved and the institution, or it is something that needs to be investigated more thoroughly. It is clear that for the sake of the state, for the sake of justice, a thorough and real investigation must be made, so that there is no room left for concerns, Ambassador Thimonier said during the interview.

The diplomat’s comments cut even deeper than that. He painted a dire picture of how France sees the Balkans, which will affect the accession process.

The image of the region is one of violence and corruption. The cases we discussed unfortunately don’t contribute to improve this image. There is a long list of issues such as fighting corruption, removing the party from the state apparatus, reforms in the public administration and in the media. Unfortunately, all these issues touch of the case we discussed, Thimonier said.

The Ambassador openly called for accountability on the part of the ruling SDSM party, saying taht France will be monitoring its reaction and it will affect whether Macedonia is able to restore the trust and confidence it once had.

So far, prosecutors have avoided pressing charges against the SDSM party officials rumored to be involved in the case, and even Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva is still not charged or properly investigated.