Budapest (dpa) - Macedonian voters delivered a "slap" in the face of the European Union by invalidating a referendum which was supposed to open the door to membership talks with the bloc, the leftist Hungarian newspaper Nepszava said Tuesday."German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and others trekked to Skopje for nothing ... and got a little taste of how the Balkans work," the Budapest daily said.A stream of Western leaders had visited Skopje in the run up to Sunday‘s referendum urging Macedonians to back a name agreement with Greece and move toward joining NATO and opening EU accession talks.But Prime Minister Zoran Zaev‘s motion flopped as just around one-third of the voters showed up to cast ballots, far fewer than the half required for a valid referendum."The EU ... needs to look into the mirror and ask itself: What happened so that the union is no longer the image of a beautiful, new world which everybody wants to be a part of, no matter what the cost?" the daily said.Zaev intends to continue implementing the agreement, as the referendum was not legally binding. The outcome on Sunday however complicates the crucial step he must take - to secure votes from nationalist opposition lawmakers to constitutionally change the name of the country into Republic of Northern Macedonia.If the nationalist, who oppose the name change, continue rejecting the deal, Zaev promised he would call early elections before the end of the year.
