Waltz warns: Serbian and Hungarian influence advances Russian and Chinese influence in North Macedonia
Express newspaper
02/07/2025 6:57
The European Parliament rapporteur for North Macedonia, Thomas Waitz, in his report, which is expected to be considered in the plenary session on July 8, expresses concern about Serbian and Hungarian influence, through which Russian and Chinese influence is advanced. According to the MEP, this is done through diplomacy, the media, but also loans and investments with restrictive clauses for Macedonia.
The MEP even specifically mentions that some government representatives are working on the concept of the “Serbian world”, a nationalist ideology that, by endangering the sovereignty of the states in the region, aims to increase the influence of official Belgrade. Also, in Waitz’s view, there are findings that the Russian state has used representatives of the Serbian media to spread hostile narratives towards NATO to claim that the EU is pressuring North Macedonia to abandon its identity. Meanwhile, it has been proven that Chinese diplomatic entities have financed propaganda in the Macedonian media.
Hungary is also mentioned as an actor in the chain of states working to advance Moscow and Beijing’s geopolitical objectives, becoming part of disinformation campaigns, hybrid threats, but also strategic corruption. Waitz in the report emphasizes that Macedonia recently received a loan of 500 million euros from Hungary, while the origin of the money appears to be from China.
International law professor Mersel Bilalli believes that this report can be considered a warning to the country, but expressed more gently through Parliament. According to Bilalli, the destabilizing intentions of official Moscow will not last long.
“What is now being launched from the parliamentary aspect of the European Union shows a softer line on the severity of the situation. So, instead of from the European Commission or the Council of Ministers or the Council of the European Union, it is being launched by the European Parliament as a separate personal opinion… The Russian influence has been very strong. The Chinese one a little less so. But, in reality, Putin’s power is depressed because he sees that Vučić, the agenda that he thought of exploiting, that is, Russia for very broad projects of destabilizing the Balkans, it is not happening and he understands that it is a simple game to preserve personal power,” declared Mersel Bilalli, university professor.
Rapporteur Waitz, in the report, also emphasizes the need to open the archives of the Yugoslav secret services UDBA and KOS which are kept in North Macedonia and Serbia. (Alsat)