June 24 () –
In a vote held late this Sunday, the Parliament of North Macedonia approved the coalition government led by Christian Mickoski, who pledged to continue the efforts of his predecessors to move towards the European Union.
The Normacedonian Assembly has given the ‘green light’ to Mickoski’s Executive – which will have 23 ministerial portfolios – after 77 assembly members voted in favor and 22 against. The remaining legislators were absent during the vote, having left the session shortly before it ended.
The You Macedonia coalition, led by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE), won the parliamentary (as well as presidential) elections in early May with 43 percent of the votes, obtaining 58 seats out of a total of 120 seats, three less than those necessary to govern alone.
However, after weeks of negotiations, Mickoski agreed to a coalition government with the ethnic Albanian party VLEN (14 legislators) and the liberal ZNAM (six seats), thus replacing the pro-European Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM). and pro-western.
The country was renamed Macedonia to North Macedonia in 2019, when the SDSM was in power, to resolve a dispute with Greece, which had insisted on the change because a region in the north of its country is called Macedonia. This decision allowed the country to join NATO in 2020 and paved the way for accession talks with the European Union.
However, the new president of North Macedonia, Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, and Mickoski announced during the election campaign that they no longer wanted to use the country’s current official name, North Macedonia, but rather the historical name. In fact, Siljanovska-Davkova took office using the old name of the country, prior to the 2018 Prespa Agreement, and generated a new controversy with Athens.
In this context, Mickoski has sworn in using the country’s constitutional name, although he has previously clarified that using ‘North’ is “shameful”, but he has indicated that at the moment he has “nothing to do” because “unfortunately” It is part of the law and the Constitution that he “has to respect as head of Government.” “As long as I am alive, politically and as a human being, I will do everything in my power to correct this injustice,” he added.
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