20 11 2007 Skopje _ Members of Parliament from the ruling parties and the opposition late on Monday unanimously backed a proposal to form a National Council for EU Integration.
The Council will be responsible for coordinating and accelerating Macedonia’s bid to secure EU membership.
The proposal filed by the New Social-Democrats, NSDP, a minor party in the ruling center right coalition, was supported by all 68 MPs who were present in parliament. Altogether, there are120 seats in the assembly.
“This is an attempt to reach a national consensus,” NSDP leader Tito Petkovski said in his speech in the parliament. He said that the Council would only function properly if it had enough political support.
The council, whose president is to be chosen from the opposition, is to consist of 17 representatives from all parties, and from NGOs, the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences and journalists.
However, the ruling majority did not support an opposition amendment stipulating that Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski would be included in the work of the Council. The government side claimed the prime minister is too busy to participate.
“We want a Council with a mandate to decide,” said Radmila Sekerinska, leader of the main opposition party, the Social-Democrats. She said that the Council would be handicapped if the prime minister is not a member.
Sekerinska said she suspects that establishing the council might be used by the government as a way of sharing responsibility with the opposition and as “an alibi” in case the government fails to secure a date for the start of EU accession talks.
The opposition blames the Government for the fact that the last European Commission Report on Macedonia’s progress, issued in early November, does not include a start date for entry negotiations.
Macedonia has been an EU candidate member since December 2005. However, due to the slow pace of reforms and a lack of dialogue among the political parties, it has not started accession negotiations. (Birn)
No comments:
Post a Comment