Opposition Claims Fouere Attack Damages Macedonia

A leading official of Macedonia's ruiing VMRO-DPMNE party has been accused of damaging relations with Europe after he attacked the EU envoy to the country at Monday’s session of the Joint Committee of the European and Macedonian Parliaments in Brussels.

Vlatko Gjorcev accused Ambassador Erwan Fouere of being politically biased against the government of Nikola Gruevski and of favouring the opposition Social Democrats.

Gjorcev has defended his standpoint on the grounds of freedom of expression. On Monday, he said that Macedonia had no need to treat Fouere as if he was “the Soviet ambassador in Prague in 1969” - that is, one year after the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.

"This is very strange, coming from a representative of the governing party," Macedonia’s former vice-prime minister in charge of European affairs, Ivica Bocevski, told Balkan Insight. Bocevski is now a member of the opposition Liberal Democrats.

Radmila Sekerinska, head of Macedonia’s National Council for EU Integration, and a deputy for the Social Democrats, agreed. Gjorcev’s conduct was "embarrassing for the country".

Gjorcev's remarks caused anger at the Brussels meeting, courting accusations of ingratitude. "There is a big difference [between freedom of expression] and attacking diplomats, especially diplomats who have helped your country get on that [EU] track and obtain these positive progress reports [from the European Commission]," the head of the Committee, German MEP Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, replied at the session.

Gjorcev was unavailable for comment on Wednesday to Balkan Insight. The government also refused to discuss Gjorcev’s conduct. "We will refrain from commenting on this issue," government spokesman Martin Martinovski told Balkan Insight. 

While VMRO DPMNE remained silent, the speaker of parliament, Trajko Veljanovski, a member of the ruling party, rallied to his colleague's defence. "I am convinced that Gjorcev is protecting the interests of Macedonia," he said on Wednesday.

This is not the first time that Gjorcev has expressed his discontent with Fouere. In October, EU diplomats warned Macedonia after Gjorcev lambasted Fouere in his newspaper column in the local daily "Spic".

There, he described Fouere as the "ideological megaphone" of the Social Democrats, as "a boring bureaucrat", a "protected deity" and as a person who does not promote European values.

This text appeared briefly on the web page of the VMRO DPMNE party but was later removed when criticism started pouring in. 

February 2011 marks the end of the term of the EU Special Representative, first appointed in 2005. During his term of office Macedonia gained EU candidate country status in 2005, while in 2009 the European Commission recommended the start of EU accession talks.