SkopjeDiem Macedonia in English
Parliament Speaker Afrim Gashi said he will not schedule a session of the Parliamentary Committee on Social Policy over the Draft-Law on Defenders. This follows after the President of the Committee, Alliance for Albanians MP Ilire Dauti, refused to schedule a session for discussion over the draft-law, proposed by SDSM MP Slavjanka Petrovska.
According to Gashi, the session has already been scheduled, and he addressed to MP Dauit a written order for her to schedule it.
Previously, PS Gashi scheduled a session of the Committee on Finance and Budget, after its President, SDSM MP Sanja Lukarevska, refused to schedule a session for discussion over the Draft-law for the 500-million-euro loan from Hungary.
From VMRO-DPMNE they state that the two situations are fundamentally different.
“MP Lukarevska did not respect the given deadline of 24 hours to schedule a session, while MP Dauit did that. However, the MPs from SDSM, including MP Petrovska who filed the Draft-Law on Defenders, did not attend the session in order to request for it to be added to the session’s order of the day. VMRO-DPMNE voices support for the material security for defenders, but the questions for this situation should be addressed at SDSM,” said VMRO-DPMNE MP Bojan Stojanovski.
From SDSM they issued a reaction, accusing PM Mickoski is obeying and protecting PS Gashi while he is violating the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament.
“Mickoski is allowing Gashi to act frivolously, and thus allows the destiny of the defenders from the armed conflict in 2001 to be decided upon the mercy of Gashi and VLEN. If Mickoski really supports the defenders as he claims, this is the best chance for him to prove that by asking Gashi to schedule the session,” they react from SDSM.
First Deputy PM Izet Mexhiti on the other hand, sees the draft-law as an attempt of DUI to destabilise the country and provoke inter-ethnic tensions by abusing SDSM as a tool in the process.
“In the eight years they were in power, they didn’t have such initiatives for the veterans. Until yesterday, they were fighting for a civil concept, they had Albanian voters, had Albanian high officials in their structures, so it is a real dilemma why SDSM needs this initiative to veer into extreme nationalism. But this tendency, too, will be just like all other failed initiatives for destabilization just to escape accountability,” Mexhiti said.
