Citizens of Macedonia, let me congratulate you tonight on a free, sovereign and independent Macedonia, the first President of the Republic of Macedonia, Kiro Gligorov, declared Macedonia’s independence in the evening of 8 September 1991 before the gathered crowd in the square in Skopje.

The people’s enthusiasm and hunger for moving ahead, 19 years later, have been lost, analysts say. The grand transition shocks, the scandalous privatization, the conflict of 2001, the economic downturn, the towering unemployment, the poor political dialogue, and the endless waiting before the gates of the EU and NATO caused disappointment and skepticism about Macedonia’s future, Vreme reports.

According to analysts, Macedonia exited the period of transition. However, the general view is that the citizens’ welfare has not changed and is even worse that what it was in the late 1990s. Macedonia today is a multi-ethnic country on paper alone; it still aspires to join NATO and the EU; and has not yet resolved the two-decade-old name issue with Greece.