Macedonia Ruling Party Ducks Questions About its Wealth

The head of communications for Macedonia's ruling VMRO DPMNE's party, Ivo Kotevski, has declined to confirm whether the party owns some 60 million euro of real estate, as an investigation by SCOOP-Macedonia published last week claims.

"I suppose that it [the media report] is commissioned [and based on a] lump assessments," Kotevski said.

He added that "it would take some time to conduct an assessment of the entire party's property", so that it could clarify how much it is worth.

The SCOOP investigation, published in video format on YouTube, says the party, which has held power since 2006, has accumulated tremendous assets in real estate, more than some much more prominent parties in Europe, in much richer countries.

According to the investigation, the party legally owns 33,000 square metres of office space, farmland and pasture spread across 93 sites.

The total market value of the portfolio is estimated at 60 million euros, SCOOP said, adding that only the new party headquarters in Skopje alone cost some 40 million euros.

This puts VMRO DPMNE, in wealth terms, way ahead of the Centre Party in Sweden whose property is estimated at 53 million euros and Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, CDU, in Germany, which owns property worth some 50 million euros. The UK's main opposition Labour Party owns property worth only 9 million pounds.

Ana Janevska Deleva, head of Transparency Macedonia, an NGO, says the ruling party's wealth should have been investigated long ago.

"The Public Prosecution and Anti-Corruption Commission have legal authority to ask the party to prove the origin of the money it used to buy property. But in our conditions, it is hard to expect this to happen," she said.