No photos have been published in public from the last meeting between the British Minister of State, Sir Alan Duncan, and the leader of VMRO-DPMNE, Nikola Gruevski. Recently, Gruevski has not had his photo taken with any foreigners. The party only issues longer and more detailed statements – a practice that began with his meeting with German Ambassador, Christine Althauser. After meeting the German Ambassador, Gruevski met with the Ambassadors of Turkey, France, Russia and the OSCE Mission in Macedonia, however, no photos surfaced of the leader with the diplomats.
Another example of this behaviour could be seen at the meeting between the former Prime Minister and European Commissioner Johannes Hahn, where he also remained unnoticed by cameras. Cameramen and photographers were asked to leave. Gruevski came and left through the garage of Parliament and entered the meeting through the corridor. One day after the meeting, instead of issuing a statement, the party published an article on their official website with a statement from the Director of the Centre for Communications of VMRO-DPMNE, Ivo Kotevski.
In addition to the article, an old photograph was published from the previous meeting between Gruevski and Hahn at the party’s headquarters.
And simply after the party proclamation, read by Gruevski outside the SEC where he told off foreigners, there have been no more photos of him with foreign officials, although he continues to hold meetings with diplomatic representatives in the country.
It will be interesting, in the sense to see how the visit will go with Federica Mogherini, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, who is expected to arrive in the country early next month. Mogherini, who is otherwise not a favourite within the party and supporters of Gruevski, some newspaper articles even called her a “fascistic-sorosoid bimbo” (“Dnevnik”, February 16, 2017) who “rambles on about inviolable individual rights that are holy to the EU but she is also a Sorosoid, so by default it means she is brainwashed” (“Dnevnik” on February 9, 2017), and today it was openly said that, “Ivanov and Gruevski (and definitely Popovski) should give Mogherini a ban from entering the country with an unambiguous “undiplomatic” content: Until you honour the Republic of Macedonia, the Macedonian nation, language and culture, do not come here … “
