Macedonians celebrate independence day in Skopje. Demotix/Marjan Janevski. All rights reserved.On 4 March 2015, the High Representative/Vice President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini and European Neighborhood Commissioner Johannes Hahn expressed readiness to (once again) help Macedonia in managing an ongoing political crisis between the opposition and the government.
This latest EU offer comes after the Prime Minister pressed charges against the leader of the opposition for espionage and violent overthrow. At the same time, a major wiretapping scandal was made public by the biggest opposition party, Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM). Since early February, the SDSM leadership has been gradually broadcasting wiretapped recordings between the government ministers containing elements of abuse of official power, use of state resources for party purposes, pressure on the judiciary and media, to name just a few. According to them more than 20,000 people, including current and former ministers, opposition leaders and journalists were subject to surveillance for the last four years.
This scandal comes after a 9 year inter-ethnic coalition government headed by the Internal Democratic Revolutionary Organisation – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE), a party that came to power in 2006 when Macedonia had just become a candidate for EU membership.
