Macedonia MPs Back Gruevski's New Team

Gruevski's new team | Photo by: Macedonian Government

After an at times bitter debate, 70 of the 123 MPs in Macedonia's parliament supported the new government led by Nikola Gruevski’s centre-right VMRO DPMNE party, while 47 voted against.

Gruevski won the chance to form the new government after his party came first in the June 5 early general election.

In his speech to lawmakers, Gruevski pledged to concentrate on economic growth, promising growth rates of up to 7 per cent a year by the end of his term in 2015.
 
He promised a sterner fight against corruption and renewed efforts to improve ethnic relations. He said his team would seek to strengthen education, science and especially the IT sector, which is one of country’s fastest growing areas.

Gruevski said he remained commited to getting his country into the EU and into NATO. Membership of both clubs has been stalled by a long-standing dispute with neighbouring Greece over the country's name, to which Greece objects.
 
"The government is prepared to resume dialogue (with Greece) based on the already determined strategy and principle,” Gruevski said.

Both countries are currently engaged in UN-brokered talks on a compromise solution.
 
But the Prime Minister said Macedonia would never seek a solution to the "name" dispute at any price.

“The government will not accept a change to Macedonia's constitutional name, or ideas and proposals that endanger Macedonia's identity, nation and language,” Gruevski said.

Any possible compromise reached in UN-mediated talks would go to a referendum, he added.

The main opposition Social Democrats said that Gruevski's new team predominantly comprised the same names as the last one, and offered no guarantee of a better performance.

The Social Democrats criticized Gruevski for stalling the EU and NATO integration process and lambasted what they called growing political intrusion into the economy and erosion of basic freedoms. They accused his team of fostering corruption.

Gruevski has been the Prime Minister of Macedonia since 2006. VMRO DPMNE and its ethnic Albanian partner in government, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, have been in coalition since 2008. Albanians make up about a quarter of the population.