• Wednesday, 03 July 2024

PM Kovachevski to convene leaders' meeting for talks on the country's European path 

PM Kovachevski to convene leaders' meeting for talks on the country's European path 
Skopje, 2 November 2022 (MIA) - Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski on Wednesday will extend an invitation to the leaders of parliamentary parties for a meeting, which is set to take place in Parliament on November 7 (Monday). The meeting is aimed at opening a discussion on the European future of the Republic of North Macedonia, but also on the decisions that should be taken by wide political and social consensus in the coming period in the Parliament, the government said in a press release on Tuesday. Last week, the premier also invited the political parties to a meeting to discuss the constitutional changes "in order to come to a solution acceptable for all." The opposition parties from the Albanian bloc have already raised an initiative for a leaders' meeting saying they will support constitutional changes to include the Bulgarians in the Constitution unless the phrase "language spoken by 20 percent of the citizens" is changed into "Albanian language" in the Constitution. The political party BESA has said it will invite all parties in the Albanian bloc to sit down at a meeting for talks on changes to the Constitution's amendment, which includes the phrase "language spoken by 20 percent of the citizens" to be changed into "Albanian language." The Alliance for Albanian has said soon it will release the set of measures, i.e. the party's conditions to vote in favor of the constitutional changes. "We're in the process of having consultations with international experts and intellectuals. When the time is right, we will release the set of measures, it's not urgent," Alliance for Albanian's Arben Taravari has stated. Commenting on the demand, Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani on Tuesday said the issue shouldn't be only part of the Albanian ethnic agenda, urging all political parties to discuss it. "I haven't come across any opposition from VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM for changing the phrase into '20 percent', they why it should turn into a race or animosity among the political parties in the Macedonian bloc," stated Osmani. According to him, the matter should reflect the political maturity of the society. "The time has come for these issues from 2001 to be fixed in a normal process with political maturity." President Stevo Pendarovski said the process of constitutional changes to include the Bulgarians shouldn't be rushed "because there are 14 months left until the screening process is over." "Until then, we can detect and fix something regarding the required reforms and when the process is nearing its end, then we should see whether there a two-third majority has been secured," he stated. VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski recently has reiterated his party's position that it will not support amendments to include the Bulgarians in the Constitution under the current conditions. The largest opposition party, according to him, will only support constitutional changes if the EU guaranteed that the country would join the EU and that Bulgaria would use no more vetoes during the accession process.