an hour agoFrench proposal Thursday for approval in Macedonian Parliament
Periskopi(4 years ago)
(4 years ago)The North Macedonia Assembly has scheduled for Thursday, 14 July, to hold the session for approval of the French proposal for resolving conflict with Bulgaria, which paves the way for negotiations on membership in the European Union. Parliament services have announced that MPs with a speech will also be addressed to the president of [...]
The Assembly services have announced that MPs with a speech will also be addressed to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyeen.
The Macedonian government, at the request of MPs Tuesday afternoon, has handed over all documentation dealing with France's proposal for the framework of North Macedonia's membership negotiations with the European Union.
The government published three documents from the negotiating framework, but not the bilateral protocol between Northern Macedonia and Bulgaria, required by the opposition.
The protocol, as it becomes known, will be signed in Sofia following the adoption of the proposal in the North Macedonian Assembly.
Diplomatic sources for Radio Free Europe say that if the French proposal is accepted, the first intergovernmental conference between Macedonia and the EU could be held early next week, and immediately after that the EU will start negotiations with Albania.
However, the opening of chapters will only begin after Northern Macedonia changes the Constitution to include Bulgarians in preambles, as predicted with the proposal for resolving the conflict.
To ensure a two-thirds majority for changing the Constitution is needed, the support of some VMRO-DPMNE deputies, but the leader of this opposition party, Hristian Mickoski, said it would not support changing the Constitution.
The opposition charges the Government that accepting the proposal will replace “the Macedonians, but the government has assured the opinion that language and identity are not jeopardised with the proposal that it sees as the only possibility of unlocking European integration.
Northern Macedonia has won candidate state status in 2005, but negotiations have never been launched, initially due to disputes with Greece over the name issue, which were resolved with the agreement between the two countries on June 12th 2018.
But, the dispute with Bulgaria has left open the launch of talks after Sofia vetoes in November of the year, conditioning its removal on the resolution of the language dispute, identity and historical aspects with northern Macedonia.
