On March 16, a fire was tore a nightclub that was improvised inside the abandoned carpet factory in Kokani, northern Macedonia, 59 young men were killed And injury more than 150.

In Kokani, a town of less than 25,000 people, the loss is deep – a large part of its youth died in the fire. Like many cities across North Macedonia, it has already been bound by immigration. For those young people who stayed, the fire was a devastating reminder of the possibilities of life shrinking at home.

The tragedy prompted mourning and national anger. Students have organized the protests and the occasion, lighting candles and carrying signs that read: “In war, not as many people die as they do in this corrupt cheap peace” and “either we migrate, or burn alive.”

These messages speak to something deeper than this one accident – they reflect widespread discontent that have been built for years. The tragedies in the northern Macedonia are repeated and systematic and inevitable-as a result of the ruling that prioritizes the interests of the powerful for the safety and welfare of the population.

It is easy to blame this defective governance on the corrupt local elite, but what is happening in northern Macedonia and other Balkan countries greatly exceeds.

Corruption and accreditation

The term “corruption” is often used to describe the political and economic imbalance in the Balkans, but more often, it blocks more than it is explained. Corruption, in the eyes of the European Union – the dominant power of the Balkan – is often framing as regional pathology, not as a structural condition.

However, it is not deeply included in the Macedonian institutions, but also in the relationship of North Macedonia with the European Union.

For decades, the European Union promised that its joining process would work to modernize the two countries in the Balkans – which brings democracy, the rule of law and the economic opportunity. However, in fact, the candidate countries remain besieged in a permanent transitional state: they are not “ready” to membership, but they are increasingly subject to external influence.

In this way, instead of building flexible democracies, the European Union’s accession process enables compatible elites, feeding the expansion of excess networks, and closing the Balkan governments to comply with the interests of the European Union and Policy.

In places like Kocani, these dynamics are more than clear. Although the European Union pours millions into programs such as the IPARD Utility before the IPARD, small cities and rural areas in North Macedonia are still economically stagnant, providing few opportunities for young people.

This money does not motivate local economies. Instead, it is directed by local energy networks that maintain political control over rural areas and certain sectors of the economy.

European Union funds often finish flowing to companies, consulting companies, international organizations, and NGOs with relations with Brussels. These actors affect financing priorities to serve their own interests, and deepen dependency rather than enhance the written local development in particular.

The lack of development and economic opportunities led to a huge migration that had a catastrophic impact in various public fields and economic sectors. This is also visible in Kokani. When the tragedy was struck, local hospitals were unable to deal with the large flow of injured people and dozens of victims should be transferred to the neighboring countries to treat emergency.

This is a direct result of years of the external flow of employment stimulated by the European Union member states, which constitute a form of extraction. A large number of healthcare professionals have left the country for better opportunities in the West. We have now reached a point in which employment agencies target medical and nursing students, where they have provided them with hospitals in Western Europe even before their education is completed – paid for the money of the Macedonian taxpayers.

As a result, hospitals in cities such as Kokani and even in the capital, Scopji, face a severe shortage of employees. Employees who remain burdened, which leads to a decrease in the quality of care and the attempt to deal with emergency situations.

The migration of workers not only undermines health care services, but also exacerbates the deficiency in other critical sectors such as construction and agriculture, weakening the economy, strangling innovation, and creating a cycle of decline that is difficult to reverse.

Extract and control

Elsewhere in the Balkans, the policies extracted from the European Union are more clear. In 2024, the European Union adopted the Critical Raw materials law (CRMA), which aims to ensure the independence of the mass of critical mineral supply chains. Under this framework, Brussels looks forward to the Balkans as a major resource for the so -called “green transition”.

Lithium and copper, among other minerals that are necessary for the European Union industries, It is moved through The Balkan, which enhances the role of the region as the resource extraction zone.

In Jadar Valley in Serbia, the controversial Rio Tinto Lithium Lithium project – supported by the European Union and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic – is destroyed by ecosystems, the displacement of societies, and polluted biological sources. The project was met with the huge public opposition, which prompted protests across the country and became a strong symbol of resistance against government extract and collusion.

It was also born like this, another project, a proposed Li -Mining project in the Bosnian Lubari region, led by the Swiss company Arcore AG and is supported by Milurad Dodik, the head of the entity, Republika Srpska, where, strong resistance is due to similar environmental concerns. These projects, which are marketed as sustainable development, reflects colonial extraction practices: profits flow to foreign investors, while local communities bear environmental and social costs.

Supporting these projects by local officials has led to frustration throughout the region, as people are increasingly isolated from the political process. In Serbia, this frustration exploded after the deadly collapse in the umbrella of the Novi Sad railway station, which killed 16 people. The incident sparked some of the biggest protests in the country’s history, led by students who demand accountability and end the government.

While the European Union was honest in its support for similar protests in the field of pregnancy elsewhere, as in Georgia in 2024, it remained significantly silent on the protests in Serbia. This may be related to the fact that these demonstrations against political elites with repressive trends that benefit from the financing of the European Union and serve the interests of the European Union.

The protests in Serbia revealed another dangerous dynamic: the local police forces supported by the European Union transformed the local population.

On March 15, the Serbian demonstrators claimed that the authorities used a proper cannon to disrupt the 15 -minute silence on the memory of the Novi Sad victims in Belgrade. Local media reported that similar devices had been suspected of using asylum seekers during forced evacuation operations.

The Serbian police force, just as the security forces in other Balkan countries, were supported, trained and provided with millions of surveillance from the euro and other police equipment by the European Union to contain immigration flows towards the borders of the European Union.

Local police forces, as well as the European Union, have been repeatedly involved in a violent decline and the illegal detention of asylum seekers. It is a matter of time only before publishing the technologies and practices designated for migrants against citizens who protest their governments.

A dark future

The convergence of extraction, repression and border militarization in the Balkan is not by chance. It is the logical result of the European Union integration model designed to determine European capital priorities and geopolitical interests on people’s lives and their future in the region – the people who consider it a large consumer.

What is revealed must be recognized for what it is: not a secondary result of slow reforms, but for the imperial regime. The goal is not to build flexible and independent democracies in the Balkans. Instead, creating compatible cases can be easily coercive to serve the political and economic interests of the European Union.

Young people all over the region are increasingly realized. Many no longer see the European Union as a solution to their problems, but as part of the same problem. While the decline in support for the joining of the European Union is often often offended to read it as a return to nationalism or the right possibility, the answer is in fact much more simpler: for many, it reflects the increasing recognition that the integration of the European Union has failed to provide security, dignity or prosperity. Instead, only depths are subjected.

The fire of the nightclub in Kokani was not just a terrible tragedy – the inevitable result of a regime had long been abandoned by the Northern people of Macedonia.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the editorial island.