Ohrid is again knocking on the door of the World Heritage in Danger List, and instead of solutions the government is asking for - time. Six years, to fix what, as the prime minister puts it, was being destroyed for three and a half decades. The question is whether UNESCO will buy yet another postponed deadline, or whether the lake will finally pay the bill for the illegal builds that no one wants to tear down.

In the latest Draft Decision of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, the Ohrid Region is once again proposed to be inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger. The final decision comes on 22 July, at the 48th session held in Busan, South Korea. For Macedonia and Albania - since the lake is shared - it would be a black mark of the kind that is rarely wiped away easily.

The Audit Speaks

The State Audit Office has already written down what the authorities do not want to hear out loud. The Municipality of Ohrid has no adopted urban plans for twenty populated places. It has taken no measures to remove unlawful structures, especially in protected zones. Urban equipment was in places installed without permits and paid fees. And, hardest of all - no action was taken on hundreds of rulings for illegal construction. In other words, the institutions knew, had the paper in hand, and did not budge.

An Inherited Problem or an Excuse?

Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, during a visit to Debarca yesterday, repeated the already familiar line: „Even if we were supermen, in two years we cannot fix something that was squandered for three and a half decades.” An inherited problem, they say from the Government, received through bad reports from the previous administration. Only, heritage is a comfortable thing - every government uses it to shift the burden onto the next. And the lake does not wait for mandates.

The opposition hits back. The head of Ohrid's SDSM, Asen Shajn, accuses the local and central authorities, led by VMRO-DPMNE, of not having carried out enough measures. He claims there is no progress in removing illegal builds, that new construction is being allowed in sensitive zones, and that the problems with urban planning, pollution and the sewage collector system remain unresolved. „Ohrid's status is not protected by political lobbying, but by respect for the law,” Shajn said.

And in the background sits the „Gorica 3” case - the disputed luxury hotel linked to Sasho Mijalkov, which civic organizations cite as a textbook example of construction against the rules. The authorities stay silent. The hotel stands.

There is also the detail that neither side wants to stress: it is the local authority that issues building permits and the one that is supposed to demolish illegal builds. In the period 2017-2025 mayors changed from two parties - Stojanovski and Georgieski from SDSM, and since 2021 Kiril Pecakov from VMRO-DPMNE. The shoreline kept getting concreted over under all of them.

So the question is not whose fault it is, but who will tear the structures down. UNESCO is not asking for apologies or political duels - it is asking for fulfilled recommendations. If Ohrid falls onto the Danger List, it will not fall because of Albania, nor because of „heritage”. It will fall because for decades everyone knew, and no one tore down a single wall.