Skopje, 12 April 2023 (MIA) – President Stevo Pendarovski voiced his support of the constitutional changes on Tuesday, but indicated that he is not optimistic about a potential agreement between the political parties regarding the constitutional changes.

In an interview for TV Sitel on Tuesday, Pendarovski said that he carefully listens to all politicians in the country who publicly express their positions on the constitutional changes.

“If I say I am a pessimist, and I am, because I’ve been talking about this constantly for a whole year, someone from the Government will remark that I have to create an atmosphere in which we can move forward. I am carefully listening to the statements of all politicians in Macedonia on this issue. Who will say that there is room for an agreement here? I don’t see any room for this. I am in favor of the constitutional changes, not tomorrow but today, but how can we force these people to vote for them?” said Pendarovski.

He assessed that the parties from the opposition, especially VMRO-DPMNE, “are focused on their partisan politics instead of the national politics” and, he said, “they first want to come to power, and then start thinking about a two-third majority.”

Asked why he doesn’t call for a leaders’ meeting, the President said not all parties would agree to participate.

“The opposition says we have no intention of participating in the inclusion of the Bulgarians within the Constitution. On the other hand, the Government says we have no intention of going to a leaders’ meeting if the topic of discussion is a complete adoption of the Croatian model, which we overcame with the Ohrid Framework Agreement in 2001,” said Pendarovski.

He added he sees no issue with adding the Bulgarian, Montenegrin, and Croatian people to the six other communities mentioned in the Constitution besides the Macedonian people.

A working group has been established by the Ministry of Justice, charged with drafting the initiative over the need for constitutional changes. The Government is the petitioner of the constitutional changes. Once drafted, the amendments will have to pass through all parliamentary bodies, in parallel with public debates at which experts, parties, civil society organizations and other institutions will express their positions.

The deadline for nomination of working group members by political parties and institutions expired on Thursday midnight.

The parliamentary political parties nominated the following members: Cvetanka Ivanova of SDSM, Arbr Ademi of DUI, Remzi Mehmedi of Alliance for Albanians, Sonja Mirakovska of NSDP, Nano Ruzhin of LDP, Hrista Najdanov of DOM, Temelko Risteski of Party of Pensioners, Rametula Kuqi of DPA, Eran Kurtish of Party for Movement of Turks, and Bejcan Iljas of Democracy Party of Turks.

The nominees coming from institutions are Aleksandar Spasov of the President's Office, Dragan Tilev of the Secretariat for European Affairs, and Shpend Sadiki of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Ministry said the names of experts-members of the working group will be released by the end of the week.