Filipče Demands Slaveski's Resignation and a Probe Into Alta Banka: Two Days Before the License Was Pulled in Belgrade, Mickoski Was Saying "I Don't Know If Everything Is in Order"

SDSM leader Venko Filipče used a press conference to demand the resignation of Governor Trajko Slaveski and a Prosecution investigation into how Alta Banka entered the Macedonian market. The trigger is the National Bank of Serbia's decision to pull the operating license of Alta Banka in Belgrade, the owner of the bank in Bitola.

Filipče opened with the subject that worries people most: "The question arises whether our citizens' deposits are at risk. The question arises whether the deposits of public enterprises are at risk." He also claims citizens are already gathering outside the bank's branches in several towns. How much public-enterprise money sits there, the reports from the press conference give no figure.

He saved the strongest words for the big politics. "Armageddon has begun in Serbia. The Balkan cartel is falling apart. The Balkan mafia is falling apart. It started with Orbán, Vučić fell, next is Hristijan Mickoski," Filipče said. He made the accusations that the bank is linked to money from crime, corruption and drug smuggling by citing media reports and political contacts in Serbia. Those are heavy claims, and political contacts are not evidence. If SDSM has documents, now is the moment to show them.

The prime minister, meanwhile, has a sentence of his own to live with. In a television interview aired on October 29, two days before the license was pulled, Hristijan Mickoski was asked about the doubts surrounding the bank. "I don't know if everything is in order, but for a bank to come to Macedonia, there is a clearing process like that within the National Bank," he said, adding that capital cannot enter without passing through the regulator. He dismissed the opposition's accusations about the "Serbian World" spreading through banking as untrue and as part of a campaign in which, as he put it, somebody wants us slinging mud at each other.

He said that before the Belgrade decision, not as a comment on it. But the logic stands: the prime minister doesn't know, the regulator knows. And with that, the ball ended up with Slaveski, whose resignation the opposition now wants.

So the National Bank has become the address where every question ends up. Mickoski points to its checks, Filipče wants its governor gone, and the bank in Bitola says it is liquid. Who checked the origin of the capital when the bank entered our market, what did they find, and will citizens ever get to see it? Savers deserve an answer more concrete than either "mud" or "Armageddon."