Green CIVIL spoke with the Mayor of the City of Skopje, Petre Shilegov, about the municipality’s green perspectives, promotion, fostering and understanding of green values, and their connection to social justice and antinationalism.

Green CIVIL: What are the green perspectives of the City of Skopje?

Shilegov: The strategies and policies that the City of Skopje is leading, and a green city doesn’t imply only to greenery, are verified in such a way that our city in running for a green capital passed the first phase and was among the eight candidates. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to go further, but that is probably due to the decades of neglecting the environment and of the strategic issues that mean a healthy environment in an urban environment such as Skopje. As step by step we correct these matters, the chances of Skopje holding such a title also increase.

For me it was a provocation to check whether the strategies that the City of Skopje has started to implement are on the right path. Hence, that verification and making into the 8 cities in Europe means that Skopje surely has good strategies that we have established 3 years ago since I became mayor.

Green CIVIL: What specifically is the City of Skopje doing in the context of implementing green policies?

Shilegov: The question is more complex, partly from the energy policy the City of Skopje is conducting, partly from the urban transportation, alternative transportation… The energy policy covers all types of heating of homes, energy efficiency of buildings, and then finally comes greenery. If you take a look at all these points, you will see that the City of Skopje is indeed seriously engaged in implementing these projects.

Strategically, I find the forming of city energy systems to be important, in which area we are already in a phase of having submitted an application to the Energy Regulatory Commission for acquiring permission for engaging in this activity. That means that the City of Skopje will be able to assume a more active role towards its citizens, starting from connection to the central heating system and gasification, up to the fact that two out of three tenders for the Baspait transit, as a most contemporary concept for urban transport, are all already in progress and we are waiting for the final negotiations between the Ministry of Finance and EBDR, which is the main financer… We are already working on two tenders. One is for a solution for the Baspait transit alignment and the other is for a so called optimization of the bus lines, because bus transportation, as we know it, will simply cease to exist, because the concept is completely different.

For the third year in a row, we are breaking records on renewing and setting up new greenery in public spaces, such as in Michurin under the train station and in the municipality of Kisela Voda next to the railway. We are already starting work on the third part of the City Park, on an area of a few hundred square meters…a whole plethora that part of the public sees and part does not…Sadly, politics are involved here too, but those are good paths for the development of our city.

It should be mentioned that with the creation of a new, so far nonexistent infrastructure in our city, the citizens will be able to bypass the center in the near future, traveling especially from the eastern to the western part. Those are things that the European Commission also assesses when saying whether a city meets certain standards and politics.

Green CIVIL: When we talk about green values, it is known that they don’t only refer to environmental protection, which on the other hand is often confused with terms related to communal hygiene. Green values imply respect for human dignity, which also implies social justice and antinationalism, strategies for sustainable development, which imply abandoning the principles of liberal capitalism… How much, according to your analyses, do politicians in this country know?

Shilegov: It would be best to view the policies from the perspective of the institution I have been leading for the past three years. Because in some areas we have budgets up to four times higher for different categories of so to say different people, for the purpose of balancing people’s opportunities, from opening day centers, to material and financial support for individual citizens, but also associations whose efforts are exactly those for which you ask me…

Green CIVIL: What will you say about the growing politically and ethnically motivated tensions in our country? Who benefits from them, and who loses?

Shilegov: The functioning of certain political parties is a sociological phenomenon. In absence of political arguments or sustainable options that would be attractive to the political public, which guarantee progress and development, unfortunately, and for my taste as well, easily play with the most intimate feelings of citizens. Such as religious or national affiliation. In a complex society such as the Macedonian, it can lead to serious unwanted consequences. That is the simplest policy to lead. I call it policy of slogans. It’s very easy to say a certain slogan, to associate a certain group of people with it and for it to gain political weight. It’s very difficult to deal with the consequences of such a slogan.

With a responsible attitude and approach of us who are part of the public life in a political sense, but also of you who are part of the public life in the media sense, it is our obligation to create a different environment in society. If you create the environment differently, you disappoint politics. We have people who are now at the beginning of their political careers, who have mixed up left and right and when you do that, civilization calls it national-socialism or fascism. Such mixing up cost civilization 50 million lives in the Second World war. They easily appeal to the ear, but the consequences are horrifying.

Biljana Jordanovska

Camera: Atanas Petrovski

Editing: Arian Mehmeti

Translation: N. Cvetkovska