Skopje, 21 February 2024 (MIA) — Caretaker Interior Minister Panche Toshkovski said he had received news from Brussels that the European Union would not cause any problems if citizens of the Republic of North Macedonia currently out of the country needed to travel with their old name passports to some countries.

"Today I received information, in writing, that the European Commission's travel documents committee had held a meeting. The Belgian ambassador relayed this to me," Minister Toshkovski said in a Sitel TV appearance on Wednesday morning.

"They will show understanding for our problem and will be as fair and restrained as possible in relation to our citizens. Our citizens outside of Macedonia, 70,000 of them in Germany have old name passports. The Germans have this data, we don't. They will be able to go to Hungary and the Czech Republic without any problems, but they won't be able to leave Macedonia if they come back home," Toshkovski said.

He said the committee had recommended to EU member states "to show understanding," adding: "Yet what are we doing? Only Macedonia, apart from Greece, will be violating the basic human right to freedom of movement, because Members of Parliament from the SDSM and DUI ruling structure don't want to press a button."

He was referring to VMRO-DPMNE MPs' proposal to extend the old name passport validity until the end of 2024, which had not been put to a vote in Parliament.

Speaking about the new name passports, Toshkovski said only 3,000 new passports could be printed daily. "If we print type B passports in other languages, this [number] will be below 2,800, so it would be slower," he said.

According to the caretaker interior minister, if the passport printing machines operate at full capacity and if there are enough passport booklets, all citizens will be able to replace their old name passports by the end of the year.

"We have about 10 months, but only if our capacity increases, at least minimally, and if we have the booklets, will we be able to replace those 650,000 passports with the old name," he said. 

"We can't procure one more machine because of the upcoming elections. This procedure takes time. If we work 25 days a month, at 3,000 per day, that's 75,000 per month. At this rate, we will be able to replace them," Toshkovski said. mr/