Meanwhile, the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party called Zaev out for the failure of his foreign policy, which relies on making major concessions to neighboring countries on historic issues and issues of national identity in exchange for them allowing Macedonia to advance toward NATO and the EU. According to VMRO spokesman Dimitar Arsovski, Zaev clearly made promises of major concessions to Bulgaria and hasn’t delivered on them yet, which prompted the veto.

This tomato diplomacy (reference to the gimmick from Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov who gave tomatoes to his EU colleagues) can’t get us to the EU. Zaev is horse-trading, promises concessions and fails to deliver. That can’t be the way that brings us to the EU. Zaev, President Pendarovski and Dimitrov are refusing to inform the public what is it that they promised to deliver in Berlin, what further harm to the Macedonian people did they accept. We keep getting informed about their concessions from the Bulgarian media and politicians, who brag about the latest deliverables they wrestled from Zaev, Arsovski said. He pointed to Bulgarian media reports that there are three new conditions for Macedonia to be allowed to open its EU accession talks, which will affect the entire course of the accession.

Arsovski said that the way out of this crisis is an immediate resignation of the Zaev Government the creation of a broad Government of national unity and salvation.