Macedonian Vice PM Faces No-Confidence Vote

The move was announced on Thursday after the National Council for EU integration failed to hold a session aimed at reviewing the work undertaken for the adoption of laws required for the country’s EU integration path because of the absence of the minister.

“This kind of ignorance can't continue. The no-confidence vote would be held in order to help Macedonia go forward with its EU integration process,” Andrej Zernovski, a legislator from LDP, told media.

He explained that his party sees a setback in the pace of adopting the needed laws.

Radmila Shekerinska is the head of the National Council, which is a body comprised of politicians, experts from various fields and intellectuals. Yesterday she also accused the government for not complying with the set tasks to align the country’s legislation with that of the EU.

“The government speaks about it a lot but does not work for the EU bid. Of 374 regulations envisaged for adoption this year, only 21 were adopted in the first quarter. This only continues the negative trend from last year, when only 30 per cent of the envisaged regulations were adopted.”

Shekerinska noted that the regulations are the sole responsibility of the government, unlike the bills, which must be passed in the parliament.

Shekerinska is a high ranking member of the opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, who previously served as the vice prime minister for EU affairs.

Since the country achieved EU candidate status in 2005, Macedonia has received several annual reports from the European Commission in which further reforms were urged.

Naumovski assumed the post of Vice PM for EU affairs in the autumn of 2009, shortly before the EC finally noted a sufficient progress in the reforms and recommended the start of Macedonia’s EU accession talks.

However, talks have not been started because Greece blocked the move pending a solution to the bilateral “name” dispute.