Skopje, 9 August 2023 (MIA) — After the ruling coalition led by SDSM released Tuesday a Manifesto urging all political party leaders to commit to efficient membership talks with the EU, the opposition dismissed the move as another failed chance for the government to build consensus as it did not involve VMRO-DPMNE in the drafting of the document.

According to SDSM, the manifesto is a good foundation for reaching general agreement around the European future of the country and serves to guide Parliament in defining all competent institutions' positions and actions in the negotiations with the EU.

It notes that the ruling coalition's policies are aimed at achieving not only top strategic priorities in the national interest, such as NATO and EU membership, but also at providing citizens with a secure future, economic progress, and European values.

"We are the guardians of the Macedonian identity, language, culture and tradition as well as the unity between all our citizens, regardless of ethnic, religious or other affiliation. It is through this Manifesto that all the leaders of the political parties commit to making every effort to finish the accession negotiations in the least time possible while fully safeguarding the identity, tradition, language, and social values of the citizens," SDSM said in a press release.

With the manifesto, they note, all signatory political parties pledge to cooperate and lead the negotiations openly and transparently so the general public can voice their opinion regarding EU membership conditions.

"Our homeland and we all have a historic chance ahead of us to continue on our European path by voting for Europe in the Macedonian Parliament. We should now take a step forward and make a decision to adopt the constitutional amendments and join the EU faster. Hence our call for unification around the country's European future," the ruling party's release said.

The opposition, on the other hand, said the government had once again missed an opportunity for consensus.

"Namely, Bujar Osmani, Artan Grubi and maybe Bojan Marichikj sat down and wrote a document they titled a 'Manifesto' and after defining it themselves, sent it out as an SDSM press release to the public calling on VMRO-DPMNE to accept this already written document," VMRO-DPMNE's spokesman Naum Stojkovski said Tuesday in response to a reporter's question whether the party would sign the manifesto and help build national consensus on the EU talks as already requested by Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski.

"Apart from the fact that with this move they admit they have not moved even a millimeter in the direction of realizing the state's strategic interests, they have also shown the absence of any capacity for consensus building," Stojkovski said.

"After VMRO-DPMNE officially receives this document, if there is any basis to consider it at all, we will analyze it and come up with our own position," he added.

The initiators of the manifesto are the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), Alliance for Albanians (AA), Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), New Social Democratic Party (NSDP), Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA), Party for Movement of the Turks (THP), Democratic Party of Turks in Macedonia (TDP), Democratic Renewal of Macedonia (DOM), VMRO – People's Party (VMRO-NP), Party of Pensioners (PP), and Serbian Party of Macedonia.

The manifesto was unveiled ten days ahead of the parliamentary session on the proposed constitutional changes, scheduled for Aug. 18. Starting the process of changing the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority, or at least 80 Members of Parliament. mr/