Skopje, 11 April 2023 (MIA) – The constitutional amendments are an obligation of our country to undertake in the process of the accession to the EU and I expected which parties would and which parties would not take part in the working group set up by the Ministry of Justice, Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski told reporters on Monday when asked how the working groups in the Ministry of Justice will function, where the opposition parties refused to participate.

“In the country, we have two concepts - one concept is political parties that support North Macedonia as NATO and EU member, and we have a second group of political parties led by the Levica and their hostage VMRO-DPMNE, I said this back in September last year, that are against the country's membership in NATO and the EU. And this has been confirmed in history. Today's opposition did not vote for any of the NATO decisions. They did not even vote for the Frontex agreement, where for the first time the Macedonian language is part of an agreement in which all other languages of the EU member states are listed,” Kovachevski said.

He added that "the improvement of the living standard, the introduction of democratic institutions at a higher level, the membership in the EU, cannot be held hostage to the career of one person, but they are the obligation of all MPs in the Parliament to make decisions that will ensure the European future of the current and future generations."

The Ministry of Justice will announce on Tuesday the composition of the working group on constitutional amendments. The Ministry's deadline provided to the institutions and the political parties in the written requests to nominate representatives for the working group ends Monday midnight.

According to the latest information, the working group should include six to eight experts. Certain political parties and institutions already announced to the public the names of the representatives they nominate.

At a press conference on Monday SDSM announced that the party's representative for the working group is Cvetanka Ivanova, current Secretary General of the Parliament and former MP. The Alliance for Albanians said they nominate MP Remzi Mehmedi. According to reports, Besa has also nominated a representative for the working group on constitutional amendments, and DUI is also expected to announce their representative today.

VMRO-DPMNE, Alternativa, Levica, the Socialist Party of Macedonia and the Democratic Union said over the weekend they won't be taking part in the working group on the constitutional amendments.