SDSM Vice President Radmila Sekerinska finally acknowledged that Macedonia was not given a date to open EU accession talks. SDSM has been announcing and even celebrating “the date” since 2017, but the closest it got is a political statement of the European Council that accession talks will open, but again, with no date attached.

She was pressed on this issue by VMRO-DPMNE Vice President Aleksandar Nikoloski today, and exploded.

Do you have a crystal ball? You want to predict when will the President of the European Commission, the Enlargement Commissioner and member states meet? During the peak of the coronavirus? I’m no Baba Vangja, Sekerinska said, referring to the famous clairvoyant. European member states have yet to approve the opening of accession talks and Bulgaria has raised serious issues with the implementation of the 2017 Zaev – Borisov treaty that add another obstacle, on top of the major corruption scandals in Macedonia.

Nikoloski responded that the reason Macedonia does not receive a date to open accession talks is the incredible level of corruption in the ruling SDSM party.

The Prime Ministers of Belgium, France, Italy, they will not sit at the same table with a corrupt Prime Minister. Zoran Zaev should tell us when was he last invited at an official visit to a European country? It was before his scandals surfaced. Nobody wants to meet a corrupt politician, we have a new criminal affair involving him come up every day, Nikoloski said.

He pointed to the highlist of just the past few days: the revelation that the head of the Healthcare Fund Den Doncev was extorting money from a healthcare company; the record setting tax fraud by five companies linked to a Strumica businessman with ties to Zaev; extortion in public procurement in the REK Bitola coal plant and of course, the testimony from Bojan Jovanovski – Boki 13 that Zaev took the money in the Racket scandal.