if Macedonia changes its name and accepts other Greek requests, the date will be approved in June 2019, but opposition from France and the Netherlands prompted the EU to begin talking about granting only a “preparatory stage of negotiations”, a cop-out Macedonia was offered before, and now even Zaev is acknowledging that the actual negotiations will begin later this year, maybe next year…

I will absolutely not resign, primarily because we will get the date, there are issues being reviewed at this moment, there is little room between the European Parliament elections and the European Commission report and four days in which several Parliaments will be able to accept that report and give the approval before the European Council. We are glowing before the entire world, we are teaching Europe lessons in European manners and European values and European behavior and I absolutely do not intend to resign, Zaev said.

Meanwhile, journalists and commentators in Macedonia are entertaining themselves going over statements where Zaev promised, with absolute certainty, that the talks will begin this summer.

– We should rejoice, Macedonia was given a date to begin accession talks in June 2019. It is repulsive to deny this fact, Zaev said in July 2018.

– President Tusk strongly supports everything that is being done in Macedonia and he guaranteed that after the reform process is complete it is certain that Macedonia will receive a date to open accession talks in June at the European Council, That is the projected date if everything continues to develop under the timeline we are maintaining, Zaev said in December 2018 after a meeting with the European Council President Donald Tusk.

These and many other similar statements Zaev made in the past year are now being quickly replaced with comments such as “we were promised”, and “we always expected that the actual talks will begin in 2020”, as well as with frantic pleading calls to Berlin.