The spinning of the Agreement with Athens continues along the same lines and without any arguments

If you read Hristijan Mickoski’s entire speech, and furthermore analyze his previous speeches and addresses on this matter, it becomes clear that the public is presented with a great deal of feigned explanations that the Agreement is deleterious, without specifying and providing word for word analysis of particular articles, not even once, so a clarification on their deleteriousness can be provided

Author: Teofil Blazhevski

In his speech on the upcoming referendum delivered in Shtip, VMRO-DPMNE’s president uttered stances that we assess as a spin:

Perhaps, it would have been easier for Kljusev and Gligorov if they agreed to everything our southern neighbor asked for in the 90s, but they didn’t, they didn’t because they didn’t want to see their own country humiliated, disdained and demolished. Today we have a politician who is doing that and he’s not ashamed of it. We have Zoran Zaev and his government entourage. A person and people who are talking about their respect for the past without any problem whatsoever, while being cool as cucumbers, they are forming a committee in front of our eyes that will review our history, as if an obligation assumed on behalf of all of us, although nobody has granted them such right. And more importantly, they are applying a provision of an agreement signed by Zaev and Dimitrov on their own and most importantly – they are applying a provision of an agreement which, at this point, is not into force at all, just to be favored by Tsipras and Kotzias, nothing more and nothing less!

[Source: VMRO-DPMNE website, date: 16 September 2018]

Counter-spin:  With all due respect for the freedom of speech the public should have for everyone, even the leader of the largest opposition party Hristijan Mickoski, it seems as if he cannot help but insert spins in his speeches every now and then.

An identical and concrete spin was repeated by Mickoski in less than a week during his address in Shtip on 16 September 2018 where VMRO-DPMNE held a protest gathering – a march – against the Prespa Agreement.

Namely, Mickoski yet again spins when says “cool as cucumbers, they are forming a committee in front of our eyes that will review our history, as if an obligation assumed on behalf of all of us, although nobody has granted them such right. And more importantly, they are applying a provision of an agreement signed by Zaev and Dimitrov on their own and most importantly – they are applying a provision of an agreement which, at this point, is not into force at all, just to be favored by Tsipras and Kotzias, nothing more and nothing less!”

Truthmeter has already clarified this spin by Mickoski, but because he is being persistent, we are going be just as persistent by re-debunking the spin. Simply, the committee that has to reconsider and review certain truths and if it establishes that such truths are justified, not just from historical aspect, ought to be formed at once, i.e. within a month after the agreement has been signed.

It’s a joint and interdisciplinary committee consisting of Macedonian and Greek representatives, while the tasks and formation time are stipulated in article 8 of the Agreement and article 20, which covers the transitional and final provisions. Further details can be found in Macedonian and Greek expert committees are an obligation with a precise timeline emanating from the Agreement, published on 13 September 2018.

Apart from repeating this spin, Mickoski and other party representatives repeat yet another one, i.e. they say that Macedonia is going to lose everything with this agreement. The latest edition of this thesis of Mickoski, presented at the aforesaid rally in Shtip, is wrapped in the word “bet”:

First, they betted our name with the temporary reference, then the state flag, and then the new territorial division, and now they want us to bet everything we have left and everything we have the doubtless, sovereign right to: the Constitution, identity, name, our fellow citizens from the neighboring states.

Since speeches and addresses delivered by VMRO-DPMNE’s leader and the party in general contain no arguments on the agreement itself i.e. given that certain articles that would be capitulatory and pernicious, as they say, are not debated, we are going to deconstruct Mickoski’s sentence, thus reveal the spin.

“They want us to bet everything we have left and everything we have the doubtless, sovereign right to: the Constitution (correct, the agreement will amend it), identity (incorrect, not a single provision touches the identity issue of the Macedonians), name (partially correct – geographical qualifier will stand before the name of Macedonia), our fellow citizens from the neighboring states (incorrect, the agreement contains a provision on precisely determining a Constitutional article that will define the manner of Macedonia’s conduct regarding its fellow citizens wordwide, including our neighbors)”. In fact, readers can check all of this themselves by reading the Agreement.

If you read Hristijan Mickoski’s entire speech and furthermore analyze his previous speeches and addresses on this matter, it is clear that the public is presented with a great deal of feigned explanations that the Agreement is deleterious, without specifying and providing word for word analysis of particular articles, not even once, so a clarification on their deleteriousness can be provided.

What’s more, assessment words such as capitulatory, devastating, deleterious, suicidal and so on are used, oftentimes accompanied by spins, as evident in the this article.

Hence, we assess the parts of Mickoski’s speech pointed out in this article as a spin.

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