MACEDONIA suffers a lack of international attention partly because, unlike its neighbours, it emerged from Yugoslavia’s disintegration without fighting a big war. The European Commission supports the country’s desire to open talks on joining the European Union, but this has been stymied by Greece’s objections to Macedonia’s name, which it shares with a Greek province. Now a snooping scandal threatens to undermine even the commission’s support. For the past month, Zoran Zaev, leader of the opposition Social Democrats, has been leaking tapes of alleged conversations gathered for Nikola Gruevski, the prime minister, and his spy chief, who happens to be his cousin.

Mr Zaev claims that the pair have listened in on 20,000 people. This would mean that almost every bigwig in politics, business and the media has been spied on—including Mr Gruevski’s ministers. In one tape, the interior minister tells the finance minister that she has talked to the chief prosecutor about dismissing criminal charges against him. In another, the finance minister calls Mr Gruevski’s economic policies “insane”.

Macedonians might have guessed that their government was spying, but many are stunned by the extent. Mr Zaev has been charged with trying to “overthrow the constitutional order”. Mr Gruevski says that the wiretapping was organised by a former secret-police chief close to the Social Democrats, at the behest of foreign spooks. He has accused Mr Zaev of trying to blackmail him into forming an interim government and calling an election. The Social Democrats have shunned parliament since last April’s election, which they say was fraudulent.

Mr Gruevski’s power base seems solid. He has been in office since 2006. But his main coalition partner, an ethnic Albanian party, has called for the EU to mediate an end to the political logjam. Veton Latifi, a political scientist, says democracy is “unravelling”, and that the scandal reveals a retrograde political culture. The main media outlets toe the government line, and are used to smear opposition politicians. This may be related to the scandal: one tape released by Mr Zaev appears to record a minister and the secret-police chief giving instructions to editors. Mr Zaev claims that over 100 journalists were bugged.

The Social Democrats have been struggling for years. Nenad Markovikj, a political analyst, says that, if the tapes scandal fails to revive their fortunes, they are “done”. A good sign is that civil society is waking from years of slumber. There have been demonstrations against pollution. Protests by students and those hurt by a new tax law have forced the government into concessions. But Fatmir Besimi, a deputy prime minister, says the scandal has hurt Macedonia’s reputation and may threaten its hopes of EU accession.

The economy has been doing better than most neighbours’: this year could see GDP growth of 3.7%. But official unemployment remains at 28% and wages are low. With no census since 2002, nobody knows if the official population estimate of 2.1m is correct. In 2010 the World Bank reckoned 447,000 people from Macedonia were living abroad. Anecdotal evidence suggests that more are packing their bags.