VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at a time when his conservative wing in the European People’s Party scored a major coup that influenced the outcome of the high level EU negotiations.

Only months ago, Orban faced pressures from the centrist EPP leaders and especially from the Dutch Socialist deputy President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans, who was bent on initiating sanctions against Hungary, Poland and other right wing led countries. The campaign against Hungary led to threats that his Fidesz party may be expelled from the European People’s Party, and the initial EPP candidate for President of the European Commission, Manfred Weber, said he doesn’t want the Fidesz votes (to which Orban promptly replied that he is not getting them anyway).

Things got a turn to the worse for Hungary when the centrist EPP wing even agreed to support not Weber but Timmermans as the new President of the Commission. But this prompted a conservative led push-back, in large part led by Orban. EPP members rebelled against the proposal to give the declining socialist parties the chance to run the most important EU institution, and both Weber and Timmermans were pushed aside in favor for German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, a move which Orban described as a major defeat for the left wing ideologues in the EU.

Mickoski and Orban met in the historic Carmelite Monastery to discuss two main issues – the major corruption scandal growing in Macedonia and the future cooperation of VMRO and Fidesz within the EPP, which is set to elect its new leadership. A major development may be the coming appointment of a new EU enlargement commissioner. Austria has re-nominated Johannes Hahn to the Commission, but it is uncertain whether this politician, who has frequently sided with the left in the Macedonian political crisis, will be given the same position, or will move on to a different department – his third in three consecutive commissions. Hungary is likely to nominate its former Justice Minister Laszlo Trocsanyi to the Commission, and he is reportedly interested precisely in enlargement. Given Orban’s newfound clout in the EU, it is possible that the practice of supporting leftists could be overturned under the new Commission.

The Macedonian left is really making it difficult for any European diplomat, except the most dedicated supporters of the left, to ignore its crimes and corruption. It is a rare feat that a country has such an evident corruption scandal involving precisely the Special Prosecutor who was meant to investigate corruption. Even if the bureaucrats in Brussels remain determined to turn a blind eye to what is really happening on the ground, growing skepticism in countries such as France and the Netherlands means that such scandals will be harder to ignore or cover up in the future. Coupled with a change of guard in the Commission, it is possible that Zaev’s honeymoon with the EU is at an end.