These are the events that marked 2021 in Macedonia

Zoran Zaev’s resignation as Prime Minister and leader from SDSM, local elections, vote of no-confidence in the Government and the uncertainty over the parliamentary majority, the continuation of the Bulgarian blockade on EU path, the fire in the modular hospital in Tetovo, the bus accident of “Struma”, but also sports success – the first participation in the European Football Championship and the Olympic taekwondo silver from Tokyo, are some of the events that will mark the passing year.

Local elections

On October 17, 2021, local elections took place in 80 municipalities and in the City of Skopje. The second round of local elections took place on October 31. The elections were scheduled by the Parliament Speaker Talat Xhaferi on August 6, 2021. The election campaign lasted from September 27 to October 15. For the first time in these local elections, fingerprint identification system was used.

VMRO-DPMNE won largest number of mayoral seats – 42, SDSM won 16, and DUI 11. With this, VMRO-DPMNE won 37 mayoral seats more than the previous local elections, SDSM 41 less, and DUI one more.

The evening after the end of the second round of the local elections, due to the bad election results, SDSM leader and Prime Minister Zoran Zaev announced his resignation.

Resignation of Prime Minister and SDSM leader Zoran Zaev

After the local elections, Prime Minister and leader of SDSM Zoran Zaev announced his resignation from both positions, at the end of November he resigned from the party, the highest party bodies of SDSM, the Executive and the Central Board, accepted the resignation on November 26 and decided the new leader to be elected in direct party elections on December 12. There were three candidates in these elections, and Dimitar Kovacevski was elected the new leader of the party, who took over the party position on December 15.

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev submitted his resignation as Prime Minister to the Parliament Speaker on December 22, announcing that he would not orally explain it.

The Parliament on December 23 verified the resignation of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev. The resignation was verified without Prime Minister Zaev orally explaining it. The resignation of the Prime Minister entails the resignation of the entire Government.

After Zaev’s resignation, President Stevo Pendarovski on December 29 hand over the mandate to the new prime minister-designate Dimitar Kovacevski. The prime minister-designate, according to the Constitution, within 20 days from the day he was given the mandate, should submit a program to the Parliament and propose the composition of the Government. When Kovacevski was given the mandate, he announced that he plans to propose the composition of the new Government around January 10-11.

Announcements for a new parliamentary majority and a vote of no-confidence in the Government

On November 5, VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski announced that a new majority of 61 members of parliament had been secured, along with the Besa Movement, the Alliance for Albanians, Alternative and Levica.

Besa Movement’s MP, Kastriot Rexhepi, did not attend the session, after which the opposition’s attempt to overthrow the Government failed.

After the failure to vote no confidence in the Government, Alternative, which was part of the initiative for a new parliamentary majority, began negotiations with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev to join the Government. Following the negotiations, the party’s highest body, the Central Council, decided on December 4 that Alternative would be joining the government and the parliamentary majority.

The reason for Alternative joining the Government, as the party stated, was the historic moment for the opening of EU membership negotiations and the closure of the dispute with Bulgaria as goals of the country.

Two vetoes on start of EU negotiations 

Despite the strong commitment and diplomatic efforts of the Portuguese EU Presidency to mediate to overcome the blockade, Bulgarian did not lift its veto at the regular meeting of the General Affairs Council in Luxembourg on June 22, 2021. Sofia continued to insist that the negotiating framework for Macedonia should contains guarantees for the implementation of the 2017 Friendship Agreement.

The second veto from Sofia in 2021 came at the end of the Slovenian presidency. At the General Affairs Council on December 14 in Brussels, EU member states failed to reach an agreement on holding the first intergovernmental conferences with Macedonia and Albania by the end of the year due to the Bulgarian blockade. In the conclusions of the meeting, the wording “in favor of holding the first intergovernmental conference as soon as possible after the adoption of the negotiating framework” was adopted.

Open Balkans

On July 29, in Skopje, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, Albanian counterpart Edi Rama and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic signed the “Open Balkans” initiative in the presence of more than 350 representatives of the business sector from across the Western Balkans.

The leaders of the three countries signed agreements on a joint response to natural and other disasters, work permit mutually recognized in the three countries and a assistance to move goods without undue delay.

The goal of the “Open Balkans” initiative is to create an economy without customs, without border restrictions and with 100% free trade. The initiative is not limited to the three countries and any other country in the region is welcome and can join if they wish.

Fire in the modular Covid hospital in Tetovo

On the evening of September 8, 2021, a fire broke out in the modular hospital in Tetovo where Covid-19 patients were treated. Fourteen people were killed, of which, according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, 12 were patients and two were relatives of the patients.

According to the report on the fire in the modular hospital in Tetovo, which claimed the lives of 14 people, the accident occurred as a result of a faulty extension cord that had been powering a defibrillator machine which was used in one of the hospital’s reanimation rooms. After the fire, Health Minister Venko Filipce and his deputy Ilir Hasani offered to resign for moral reasons, but after the report was published, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev informed that he did not accept their resignations, which sparked sharp criticism from the opposition.

The investigation into tragic event is still ongoing. Four German experts were also involved in the investigation.