Pressed on the failure to deliver on the promise to fight crime and corruption, which is one of the sticking points as Macedonia asks to be allowed to open EU accession talks, Interior Minister Oliver Spasovski blamed the courts for the poor results in his department. Spasovski spent most of his term in office using the police for persecution of the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party, while a series of murders and corruption scandals were not only left unresolved but in some cases even seem tied to the ruling SDSM and DUI parties.

Our experience shows that to meet our goal it is not enough to be efficient in discovering and persecuting the perpetrators, but we also need efficient confiscation of ill gotten gains. We have cases when we work intensely on disrupting a criminal group, the people are detained and then somebody in the courts, for whatever reason, decides to release them from detention. And this is trans-national criminals, criminals who were part of the ruling structures of have strong business and international ties, Spasovski said.