Regarding Article 36 of the Constitution, where the new name will not replace the current one in the document, to which there have been reactions from Greece, PM Zoran Zaev said on Thursday those were historical parts in the Constitution itself. “The Greek side understands that,” he pointed out. As regards Wednesday’s protest outside the Criminal Court and calls for ...

On Thursday, the EU’s Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, Johannes Hahn, held a meeting in Helsinki with a delegation of VMRO-DPMNE’s reformist wing, consisting of Petar Bogojeski, MP EMilija Aleksandrova and former Health Minister Nikola Todorov, who had recently been excluded from the party, but are participating in the EPP Congress in Finland’s capital upon an invitation ...

The Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Issues started on Wednesday the debate on the four draft amendments to the Constitution that will last a maximum of 12 days. PM Zoran Zaev presented the four draft amendments and said they were the price that Macedonia should pay for the Euro-integration process. According to him, the fact that they will apply once Greece ...

On Wednesday, the Committee on Mandatory-Immunity Issues, with a majority votes in favour, accepted the Court’s request and recommended Parliament to take away Nikola Gruevski’s MP mandate because of the two-year sentence in the Tank case. Five of the nine Committee members voted in favour. The vote wasn’t attended by the VMRO-DPMNE members. Though they had come for the session, ...

Judge Dobrila Kacarska has violated Nikola Gruevski’s right to a fair trial, the Commission for Protection against Discrimination decided on Monday, in response to the former PM’s complaint. The Commission, headed by Aleksandar Dastevski, had made in September an identical decision on former Interior Minister Jankuloska. Afterwards, an initiative to dismiss Dastevski was submitted before the Criminal Court. SDSM criticised ...

ASNOM will remain in the Preamble of the Constitution and will be mentioned twice instead of once. “ASNOM’s Proclamation remains with all made decisions,” Government spokesperson Mile Bosnjakovski said at a press-conference on Wednesday, describing information on social media about the issue as false. Regarding Amendment 35, changes that will be made to Article 3 are a guarantee that Macedonia’s ...

The EU’s Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, Johannes Hahn, said on Wednesday he had held a useful talk in Helsinki with VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski. “I was crystal-clear that ratification of the Prespa Agreement must now be finalised fast, without any obstacle. I welcome his commitment not to obstruct procedure in Parliament,” he tweeted. As Hahn added ...

On Wednesday, the hearing over the Titanic case, opened by the Special Prosecutor’s Office, was stopped at 1 pm. The decision was made because of the request filed by defendants Ilija Dimovski and Nikola Gruevski, who had previously said they needed to attend the session of the Committee on Constitutional Issues. Judge Osman Shabani accepted the request, under the condition ...

The judicial system, security-intelligence services, public administration sector and fight against corruption are the areas on which the reforms contained in the Government’s Plan 18 for getting closer to the EU are focused. Plan 18 is continuation of the reforms implemented with Plan 3-6-9. At Tuesday’s briefing with journalists, ruling coalition members said they were waiting for remarks about the ...

The Reconciliation Commission was formed on Tuesday in Parliament. It will be chaired by Deputy PS Frosina Tasevska-Remenski and MP Emilija Aleksandrova of the independent group of VMRO-DPMNE. The initiative was reviewed at a coordination meeting PS Talat Xhaferi had with coordinators of parliamentary groups and deputy PSs. The first meeting after the decision on the members needs to see ...