Macedonia Minister Faces Motion for Dismissal

The opposition Liberal Democrats, LDP, tabled the motion. At the plenary session, the head of the LDP, Jovan Manasijevski, said that he was aware that his party's motion was unlikely to pass due to the firm parliamentary majority enjoyed by the ruling centre-right VMRO DPMNE party.

Nonetheless, Manasievski said, “we will achieve our main goal of bringing the public's focus back to the poor economic situation [in the country] as the government tries to divert attention to more trivial issues.”

The LDP blames Stavreski and the government for drafting a budget that is oriented toward large public spending on non profitable projects at a time when the domestic economy is struggling.

LDP pinpointed the government as the main reason for the low liquidity of the domestic economy as it has millions of euros in unpaid debt to companies. The party said the government refuses to disclose the total figure.

Stavreski replied that since the VMRO DPMNE led government came to power in 2006 the average growth rate of the economy increased from 1.1 per cent to 2.7 per cent.

He also said that the budget deficit of 2.77 per cent was among the lowest in Europe last year and that the shrinking of the Macedonian economy amid the global economic crisis in 2009 by just 0.6 per cent was a good result.

He argued that the country has repaid some of its old debts and that now it has increased space for further borrowing.

The parliamentary session is expected to last the entire day with a vote likely to held in the evening.