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I really want all the sites of the Skopje 2014 project to be fully built as soon as possible.
This was said by the Prime Minister of the North Macedonia, Christian Mickoski, reports BGNES from Skopje. According to him, "unfinished objects are an eyesore for the city". The "Skopje 2014" project, which was set up by former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who fled to Hungary, has turned the centre of the capital into a playground with countless monuments of ancient heroes. The facades of the buildings were transformed into a style-bar with mainly styrofoam. After Gruevski was ousted from power in 2017, the project was frozen, but promises to remove the "antiquization of Skopje" by Zoran Zaev's regime never happened.
"This issue /about the completion of the Skopje 2014 project/ concerns me personally. I was born and raised in Skopje. It is very ugly how the unfinished projects look. We are looking for a way to finish most of them," Mitkoski said, pointing to "the 11 per cent increase in tourists to Skopje this year, while in neighbouring countries there has been a decrease of 20-25 per cent." In this regard, Mitkoski promised a "special programme for tourism".
Gruevski also used "tourism to enforce the country's antiquization". His government paid fabulous sums for advertising spots on world television.
Ziyadin Sela's party, the Albanian Alliance, immediately reacted. "After violating the Ohrid Treaty, humiliating the Albanians, blocking European integration and creating resentment among the neighbouring countries - Bulgaria, Greece and Kosovo, rapprochement with Serbia and Hungary, now we are back to Skopje 2014". This project means a resurgence of Macedonian nationalism," the official statement from Sela's party reads. I BGNES
