Gruevski's Asylum Plea Puts Orban on Spot

Macedonian authorities on Wednesday said they will ask Hungary to extradite fugitive Ex-PM Nikola Gruevski, who fled to Budapest to evade serving a two-year jail sentence and four more ongoing trials.

After several attempts by journalist to get more details about Gruevski's status in Hungary, the Hungarian Prime Minister's Office confirmed in a statement that same day that Macedonia's former prime minister had indeed submitted an asylum request.

"Given that he was prime minister of his country for ten years, for security reasons the Hungarian authorities have allowed Mr. Gruevski to have his asylum request submitted and heard at the headquarters of the Immigration and Asylum Office in Budapest," the office stated.

Gruevski's decision to flee abroad raises questions about whether offering protection to his long-standing political friend might put Hungary's leader Viktor Orban in a tight spot.

If Hungary grants Gruevski asylum on the pretext that Gruevski's life might be in danger if he returns to Macedonia, Orban would "further erode his image among Europe's mainstream political elite", Bloomberg warned on Tuesday.

"Or he can reject it and abandon an ally he campaigned for, and possibly anger Russian President Vladimir Putin", it added. Putin is seen as the patron behind some of Orban's key moves and disagreements within the EU.

Long-standing political friendship:

Both leaders share an antipathy to - and have waged media campaigns against -  the liberal billionaire philanthrophist George Soros who is of Hungarian origin.

Gruevski and Orban were close political partners, and Orban's ruling nationalist FIDES party is a sister party to Gruevski's VMRO DPMNE in the centre-right European People's...