Macedonia Parties Mull Constitution Changes

The prime minister and head of VMRO DPMNE, Nikola Gruevski, told reporters after the meeting: “The idea is to strengthen the independence of the judicial council. We plan to increase the number of members of the council who are elected by judges and to decrease the number of members elected by the parliament.

"We also plan to exclude the Justice Minister from council membership,” he added.

The head of the opposition Social Democrats, Branko Crvenkovski, asked for written guarantees that the ruling party will stick only to those specific changes to the constitution.
 
Before the meeting Crvenkovski said that his party has no new proposals concerning this matter and that it would be best to leave the changes for another date.

VMRO DPMNE’s junior governing partner, the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, sent its leader, Ali Ahmeti, to the meeting.

All the other main parties were present as well, with the exception of the head of opposition Democratic Party of Albanians, Menduh Tachi.

VMRO DPMNE argued that the changes they propose will strengthen the role of this body, which is crucial for the independence of the judiciary.
 
The Social Democrats have said that they suspect that this is just another way to take the focus of the public off of real problems like poverty and the ongoing spat with Greece over the country's name, which is blocking Skopje’s NATO and EU entry bids.