Filipche Demands a Referendum on the Antimony Mine, VMRO-DPMNE Fires Back With "Sold Identity" Accusation
The antimony dispute gained a new line of accusations, unrelated to the project itself. No extraction decision has been made.
SDSM leader Venko Filipche called for a referendum on whether citizens want mines near their homes, after Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski again presented the antimony mine near Kriva Palanka as a strategic project with the US while in Washington. "The prime minister has no right, amid a complete debacle in economic policy, to think he can sell off the country," Filipche said, asking who would guarantee the extraction would be safe for the region's water.
VMRO-DPMNE MP Brane Petrushevski responded with a counterattack that went beyond the mine itself: he accused Filipche and former PM Zoran Zaev of "selling Macedonia's identity and language to Bulgaria," without offering evidence for the claim. The claim was also picked up by Bulgarian media, which described the dispute as a "new political war."
The two sides are talking about different things: Filipche about a concrete environmental and procedural issue (water safety, the right of local communities to a say), Petrushevski about a broader identity dispute tied to the Bulgaria issue, with no direct link to the mine itself.
The project, as previously reported, is still at the stage of a mineral assessment and environmental study — no concrete decision on extraction has been made yet.
MKNews Hub · Politics · September 22, 2026