Former Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki predicts that Macedonia will not be allowed to open EU accession talks this summer, as Zoran Zaev insisted, and that when the talks finally begin, they will last at least eight to ten years – provided no complications arise.

Macedonia will, unfortunately, not be given a date to begin accession talks this June. The selective application of justice and the lack of public administration reforms are only some of the reasons why. If there is improved implementation of the laws and fair and democratic presidential elections, we can hope to begin accession talks in 2020, during the Croatian presidency with the union. If there are no additional problems or blockades, these talks would last between eight and 10 years, Milososki said in a video address from the Coucil of Europe.

Milososki said that he is receiving conflicting messages from different EU countries, and that countries like Austria or Poland would happily support Macedonia opening of accession talks, while those in the Netherlands and France have a different position.

These representatives indicate that the position of France, the Netherlands and Denmark is that neither Macedonia nor Albania would be given a date to open EU accession talks this June. The decision would be delayed after the EU elections, in the second half of the year. This despite the fact that Prime Minister Zaev announced that the date of opening accession talks was secured last summer. This was clearly a fake news, Milososki adds.

The Zaev regime is busy arresting opposition officials and activists in a systematic campaign of persecution. Seven opposition members of Parliament had their immunity revoked – an unprecedented number in the post-Communist history of the country, and the active cases against the opposition, on all levels, number in the hundreds.

According to Milososki the urgent trip by Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov to Berlin is motivated by this newfound situation, that Macedonia may be denied a date to open accession talks despite the imposed name change. Milososki says that Dimitrov is apparently trying to get Germany to ask France and the Netherlands to allow the opening of accession talks, but that the main weaknesses of the Macedonian case remain at home.