NEWS OF THE DAY: Zbogar presents new methodology for accession negotiations with candidate countries
EU Ambassador Samuel Zbogar promoted the new methodology for accession negotiations of candidate countries that was presented yesterday by EU Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi. Zbogar assessed the methodology as a document that provides a good balance between the different views of the member states, those that have a problem with the enlargement process and those that are great promoters of the enlargement.
Credibility, greater political management with the process, predictability and dynamism are the four principles on which this new methodology is based on, with which member states will have a greater role in assessing the progress of negotiating countries.
The inclusion of every member state in the assessment of the progress, according to Zbogar, will not make the negotiation process endless, but on the contrary, the member states will be put in play early enough in the negotiations so that there are no problems later on and for them to be reconsidering the decision of the European Commission.
“The goal is to avoid delays, in case member states have different views”, said Zbogar and added that until now the process between the member states had been seen as ownership of the EC.
The negotiations will be led in a more dynamic way through clusters (groups of chapters) that will be opened depending on the assessment of the progress of the candidate country, but the principle remains according to which chapters related to the rule of law and justice are the foundation of the entire process.
Zbogar considers that the institutions in our country have the capacity for the new methodology, but also that willingness has to be shown for its applications, should it be adopted.
“The Law on Public Prosecutor’s Office needs to be adopted, as by this you will show a change in the ways of thinking, what is minimally required to be done for opening negotiations in the direction of how to maximally use the negotiations for changing the state, in order to prevent young people from leaving the country”, said Zbogar.
FLASH: SCPC has a difficult task
Dehran Muratov: The SCPC has decided on several cases of conflict of interests, in two of which fathers have the main role in the Council of Public Prosecutors and the Basic Court in Kicevo. In one case, we have a director without even having completed secondary school!
STATEMENT OF THE DAY: Georgiev: Spasovski has no conflict of interests or financial connection to the “Pin Petrol” gas station
“We have determined that the former minister has no such affiliation with the ownership and management structure of the gas station, and upon his request his assets are also being dealt with. As to the conflict of interests between the advisor to the minister and one of the owners of the gas station, we have concluded that the entire procedure has been conducted according to the Law on Vehicles and all procedures in the MOI have been respected, and allegations have not been confirmed”, said Vladimir Geirgiev, member of the Commission.
POLITICALLY OK CORRAL: In absence of political will, and under strong pressure
The question remains open how with an opposition that expresses will only for taking down the current government at all costs and defending its own crimes, can we expect to build a democratic system, strong enough to carry out the necessary reforms.
NOT LESS IMPORTANT…
For which airline tickets is VMRO-DPMNE “concerned” about?
VMRO-DPMNE’s concern about whether state money have been spent for Zaev’s airline tickets, has inspired us to recall how people’s money of the citizens were being spent while VMRO-DPMNE was in power. The tool for accountability no longer contains this data, but that is why the same can be found on the available tables with expenditures of all officials in the section of open data (link to the table with all data HERE).
Most interesting are the expenditures for airline tickets for two ministers without portfolio, Bil Pavlevski and Dzeri Naumov, for whose great achievements in the field of foreign investments nobody remembers. They had spent mind-blowing amounts of 4.807.175,00 denars, of which Bil Pavlevski 2.206.822,00 denars, and Dzeri Naumov 2 600 353, 00 denars. This is because this data was not publically accessible during VMRO-DPMNE’s rule, even though it concerns citizens’ money.
The Technical Prime Minister, proposed by VMRO-DPMNE, switched the sign with the name of the Ministry and the constitutional name of the State of the Republic of North Macedonia with the old sign with old name of Republic of Macedonia.
Cell phones will be used for personal identification when signing contracts
With the camera of the mobile devices, in the future, citizens will be able to perform personal identification and thus will not have to be physically present when concluding agreements for payment cards, customer agreements with telecommunication operators or when receiving public services. The tool will be created in cooperation with “MasterCard” from where they claim that the system will be secure and that there will be no misuse of personal data.
With this tool, according to Minister of Information Society and Administration Damjan Mancevski, there will no longer be a need for physical presence of a person, rather the mobile device and its camera will become the signature pen.
CIVIL ACTIVITIES
CIVIL with seminar “Civic Lenses: Transparency and responsibility in the political processes”
CIVIL will hold a one-day regional seminar titled “Civic Lenses: Transparency and responsibility in the political processes”, in Strumica, tomorrow (February 8) from 10.30 am to 5.00 pm at Hotel Esperanto. CIVIL’s seminars that are part of the “Civic Lenses” project, are an opportunity for citizens to learn about the basics of human rights, basics of journalistic reporting, citizen activism, as well as about the skills of monitoring and citizen participation in Strumica.
Deadline for applying for long-term monitoring expires tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
CIVIL invites its members, supporters and participants of seminars on citizen journalism, observers of previous elections, as well as all interested citizens to apply for short-term observers. (LINK TO APPLICATION).
The deadline expires tomorrow, February 8 at 12.00 noon. The selected long-term observers will be joining the already existing on February 11, with the training that CIVIL will provide in Skopje.
In the process of selection of observers, as always, CIVIL’s members and supporters, former observers, as well as those who have participated in seminars on citizen journalism, have an advantage.
Candidates who will not be selected for long-term observers will have the opportunity to remain in the network of short-term observers.
FREE ZONE
“Just when you thought you had survived the previous day without going crazy, the next day you realize that you had probably gone crazy a long time ago, since you’re accepting to normally live with all the craziness around you”, says Saso Ordanoski in today’s column
“Greetings from Santa Monica, California”
“That political party, the vmro, is not only the heir to the black past, which as a cloud is hanging over the lives of people even today, but those same people, protagonists of an extremely inhumane regime, are spreading their fake news and misinformation every day and are carrying out a black, anti-Macedonian campaign. Those same characters, without the least bit of shame, of course, without returning the stolen billions and constantly running away from justice, all of a sudden are “concerned” that state money have been spent, Janusev is worried that the Government has spent a lot of money on airline tickets in Zoran Zaev’s government”, bursts from Xhabir Deralla “inspired” by Janusev, who all of a sudden is very concerned that the governments has spent a lot of money on airline tickets. – Boy, bring us another bison here!
К-15, and К-16 if necessary points out Dzevdet Hajredini encouraged by Minister of Information Society and Administration Damjan Mancevski. Mr. Minister Mancevski, you do not have the right to pay K-15 to those who, just like Gruevski, you are sending their salary home for three years now without them coming to work.
Biljana Jordanovska
In cooperation with Diana Tahiri, Dehran Muratov, Angela Petrovska, Saso Ordanoski, Arben Zekiri, Dzevdet Hajredini and Xhabir Deralla
Translation: N. Cvetkovska
