VMRO-DPMNE deputy leader Aleksandar Nikoloski called on the key officials of the Zaev Government to resign after the failure of their push for an EU accession date during the Luxembourg meeting of European foreign ministers.

The way things are going, we will get to next year’s June and won’t have a date to open the accession talks. And consider that this is a date to begin the talks, not join the EU. Are they so incompetent that the EU won’t even let them begin the process? They assumed power with such high expectations and promises that the talks begin in June 2018. They failed to uphold the plan they themselves wrote, but only got to 42 percent implementation. Then they promised accession talks in June 2019. Now we see that’s not going to happen, Nikoloski said.

He asked Zaev what guarantees do we have that the talks will begin in October, as he now promises.

The European Council conclusions say that they will reach a decision in October, but they don’t tell us what kind of a decision. All major European countries see that corruption is increasing, the economy is tanking and the way they are trying to preserve themselves in power is entirely undemocratic, with politically driven pressures and attempts to imprison the political opponents. They even attacked Chancellor Merkel, and now Zaev’s advisers are attacking the European Council, Nikoloski said.

Nikoloski reminded the Zaev Government about their posture in the opposition, when they would do everything they can to undermine the case for opening accession talks.

Each Friday you would send emails to all addresses you could, criticizing and denigrating the country. We in VMRO-DPMNE want to see the country move forward, and we publicly offered to help implement the reforms which the EU is calling for. Unfortunately, two weeks after our party leader made his offer, there is still no response. This prompts us to ask, are SDSM and Zaev secretly happy not to open the accession talks? Are they afraid thye will be controlled by the EU and that their businesses and public procurement contracts won’t go through? VMRO-DPMNE remains at your disposal, we want to help, but I don’t believe that Zaev, Sekerinska, Osmani, Dimitrov and the others want that, Nikoloski added, calling for the resignations of the main diplomatic line-up of the Zaev Government.