SDSM Optimistic About Developments on NATO Road

Defense Secretary James N. Mattis meets with the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Macedonia Radmila Šekerinska during a visit to the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., May 1, 2018. (DoD photo by Army Sgt. Amber I. Smith)

The slow procedures in Spain’s Parliament mean that it will take a longer period of time to ratify Macedonia’s NATO Protocol. Caretaker PM Oliver Spasovski and Defence Minister Radmila Sekerinska are aware of that. The latter expects the process this week. Spain was the last to ratify Montenegro’s Protocol, too. It completed the whole process in 4.5 months. The process for Macedonia hasn’t started. Parliament in Skopje, too, will have to vote through the ratification. There are 23 days to do that before the dissolution of Parliament due to the elections in April. Sekerinska claims that the road to NATO membership is already giving results at an economic level. In addition to the ratification, the changes to the Defence Law remain the biggest problem.