The ruling majority did not support the need for amendments to the Law on Government that would allow ministers to have only Macedonian citizenship. Twenty opposition MPs voted for the SDSM proposal, while there were no votes against or no abstentions.
SDSM proposed that the amendments be passed via fast-track procedure, and the explanation was given by SDSM whip Oliver Spasovski. He said that the proposal is related to the VMRO-DPMNE initiative for MPs to have only Macedonian citizenship.
“The SDSM MP group proposed that the law be compatible with the legal solution for MPs, i.e. that members of the government have only one citizenship, the citizenship of Macedonia,” said Spasovski.
According to the SDSM whip, if MPs are required to have only Macedonian citizenship, then the same rule should apply to ministers.
“Members of the Macedonian Parliament can only be citizens of the Republic of North Macedonia, so accordingly, we should have such a legal solution that will practically limit only citizens of the Republic of North Macedonia to be members elected to the government,” said Spasovski.
He points out that there are ministers with multiple citizenships in the Government and mentioned Energy Minister SanjaBozhinovska.
“Now we see Bulgarian citizenship, Czech citizenship and so on, that is something that we have officially for members of the Government and that they have confirmed it here inParliament, I’m specifically referring to Energy Minister SanjaBozhinovska,” said MP Spasovski.
