Taravari: Serbian influence endangers Macedonia’s path to the EU

Taravari: Serbian influence endangers Macedonia’s path to the EU

The leader of the Alliance for Albanians, Arben Taravari, has raised the alarm about increased Serbian influence and the rapprochement of the North Macedonian government with Hungary, which, according to him, have taken the country away from the path towards the European Union.

Taravari said that during his time in government, he had also heard harsh criticism from international partners that the government was moving away from the European course and closer to countries that are not models of democracy.

“Many international representatives have told us that we are not moving towards the EU. We are moving closer to Hungary, which is not a preferred model in the European Union. They told us clearly: Serbia has extraordinary influence,” Taravari said.

He also revealed that he had also had meetings with senior international officials, who were concerned that the government was losing focus on European integration.

“They told us that we should insist more, we should put pressure on reforms. Because we, as an Albanian political factor, should be a guarantee for the European course, but in reality we no longer had the power to do this,” Taravari added.

As a concrete example, he mentioned the issue of the law for fair and adequate representation of Albanians in the administration, which Prime Minister Mickoski had promised, but did not bring about for months.

“In state institutions, the representation of Albanians in new employment is not even 5%. This is far from the balance we should have and shows that Albanians were marginalized,” Taravari stressed.

In the end, he stated that North Macedonia is much further from the European Union today than it was a year ago, and that Albanian factors should have done more to prevent this slide.