VMRO-DPMNE councillors in Pehčevo voted against their own government's data centre, and the minister told them they were right

When a party cannot persuade its own councillors to vote for its own government's project, that is not a rebellion. That is an admission the project was never explained. Which is exactly what happened in Pehčevo, where VMRO-DPMNE councillors did not vote for the land-use change the data centre needed.

Digital transformation minister Stefan Andonovski did not try to defend the project. Quite the opposite - he took their side. In his view, the Pehčevo investment was not clear enough to the people being asked to vote on it: there was no concrete project, no study, no data on what the building would look like, how much electricity it would consume or how it would connect to the grid.

Read that sentence again. Councillors were called to vote on rezoning land for a facility, and nobody had told them how many megawatts it would pull. Andonovski says their doubts were legitimate and sincere. He is right. But the question nobody asked is who prepared that agenda item, and with which documents.

The national data centre: location and price

In parallel, the minister denied that a permit had been issued or a contract signed for a 100-megawatt data centre that would draw water from the Vardar. The cooling water, he says, is technical water obtained by drilling into the inner layer of the earth, and he has no information that river or lake water is being used. He also says no construction decision will be taken if there is any awareness that it would damage the environment.

The national data centre, according to the announcement, will be built near Skopje by the free economic zones, on infertile state-owned land. A feasibility study has been approved, the value is estimated at around 20 million euros, and the foundation stone is expected next year. Andonovski says construction will run until the end of this government's term.

The employment figures he gave are specific and worth remembering: a 50-megawatt facility would create between 50 and 100 permanent jobs for engineers and cyber-security specialists, plus 300 to 400 temporary construction jobs over two to three years.

Andonovski also has advice for municipalities: present the plan to citizens transparently and in good time, and do not rezone land from high agricultural categories. Sensible advice. All the more so since it arrives after one municipality has already said no - with votes from the governing party itself.