Skopje, 5 June 2023 (MIA) - The Government has received the draft-initiative for constitutional amendments from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and will review it at some of the coming sessions, the Government's PR service told MIA.

It adds that the public will be duly informed about the decision.

Earlier, the MoJ said the draft-initiative has been sent to the Government after the text was edited from a nomothetic aspect and translated in Albanian.

The MoJ working group on constitutional amendments adopted the draft-initiative on May 26. The amendments relate to the Preamble by adding several peoples. Namely, the Bosniak people is to be followed by the words 'Bulgarian people, Croatian people, Montenegrin people, Slovenian people, Jewish people, Egyptian (Ashkali) people,' said working group chairwoman Margarita Caca Nikolovska after the meeting.

The second change, she added, is in the part of the diaspora and the Amendment 34 that is replaced by Article 49 and Amendment 2. It now adds after the Bosniak people 'Bulgarian people, Croatian people, Montenegrin people, Slovenian people, Jewish people, Egyptian (Ashkali) people.'

VMRO-DPMNE has said it would not support the constitutional revision, which requires a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski and VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski are scheduled to meet over the issue on Wednesday.

The Government said the meeting will focus on the decisions to be adopted in the Parliament aimed at resuming North Macedonia's European integration, and the approach of the state, institutions and political stakeholders in building and maintaining goodneighborly relations with all neighbors.

Last week, Parliament speaker Talat Xhaferi said the procedure of constitutional amendments could begin in parallel with the political talks, considering that 30 days would pass from the submission of the draft-initiative to the session dedicated to it.

Photo: MIA archive