Skopje, 5 April 2023 (MIA) – The process of constitutional amendments is structured according to the law and the Constitution, said Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski in response to a journalist’s question regarding the Croatian model of constitutional amendments.

Kovachevski said that he can’t be the one to decide what’s acceptable or not. He believes the working group within the Ministry of Justice should come up with a proposal that works for the Macedonian society, according to the applicable laws and what is expected for the country's future as a future EU member. The PM rejected VMRO-DPMNE’s proposal to hold a leaders' meeting because the positions of the political parties are already well-known.

“The working group within the Ministry of Justice, composed of experts, is already on it. It will create a proposal which will then be put up for debate, based on best experiences. There are political parties that talk about other amendment models, you mentioned the Croatian model, another party mentioned the Swiss, and that is why we need to sit down as experts and create a proposal that suits our laws and society. I am neither in favor nor against it,” the PM said at Wednesday's joint press conference with Croatian PM Andrej Plenković.

He said he was in favor of adopting amendments that will help the country open up the clusters after November and become an EU member state by 2030, with a protected language, identity and culture which will enrich the EU’s culture.

Kovachevski noted that a leaders' meeting was held in December, when all leaders of the parliamentary parties were invited to discuss the most important strategic issues for the country.

“We had no power cuts, no price shocks, and we provided for anti-crisis measures for the citizens etc. The second main issue was harmonization in terms of the need for constitutional changes in order to continue European integration in accordance with the adopted negotiating framework by the Parliament with a majority of the votes. All party leaders agreed that it’s necessary to adopt constitutional amendments, except for one that said nothing and two that didn’t show up. That’s why we don’t need another leaders' meeting,” the PM said.

A leaders' meeting is not an institutional format to bring specific solutions, it’s a format for everyone to share their political opinions in regards to a certain issue.

“Constitutional debates are led within an expert working group where every party delegates its own representatives and then amendments are defined based on constitutional law and regulations, to then be put up for public debate,” Kovachevski said.

Parallel to the amendments being publicly debated, they also enter Parliamentary procedures where “we have the democratic, visionary and strategic capacity as a country to implement these decisions and open the clusters after a successful completion of the ongoing screening phase, which is going well, according to Brussels”.

In response to Croatian reporters in terms of the integration and initiatives that North Macedonia is a member of, Kovachevski said that the country is a NATO member, fully aligned with the EU’s international policy since day 1 of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, part of the Berlin process etc.

“We are also part of Open Balkan, an initiative that connects Serbia, Albania and North Macedonia, based exclusively on the four liberties of Europe – free movement of people, goods, capital and services. We are moving non-tariff barriers between countries, enabling faster worker flow without work permits, trade has increased by 25%, and all other meetings are informal. The fact of the matter is that, yes, we are a country that has harmonized its policy to the EU's foreign policy 100% and is 100% in harmony on the part for supporting the Ukrainian people in their fight for freedom as a NATO member state,” Kovachevski said. dk/nn/