03 June, 2017
A lawmaker congratulates new Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, center, after the lawmakers approved the new government following a two-day debate in the Parliament in Macedonia's capital Skopje, late Wednesday, May 31, 2017. Forty-four lawmakers voted against and five abstained.
Macedonia's parliament has approved a new government led by Zoran Zaev with the participation of two Albanian parties.
According to him, judicial authorities will be independent, and his SDSM party does not wish to control that branch of government, concerning the accusations faced by his predecessor. Under the coalition deal, nine Cabinet portfolios will be given to ethnic Albanians, including the economy, justice and European integration.
The government will be hoping to lead Macedonia out of its worst political crisis since 2001, when Western diplomacy brought it back from the brink of civil war during an ethnic Albanian insurgency.
The 42-year-old Zaev has pledged to focus on the economy, strengthening public institutions and joining the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
This sparked protests by Macedonian nationalists and the then ruling conservative VMRO DPMNE accused Zaev of giving too much power to the country's ethnic Albanians and this way jeopardizing Macedonia's sovereignty.
The new foreign minister will be veteran diplomat Nikola Dimitrov, formerly the Yugoslav republic's ambassador to the United States and at one point its negotiator with Greece in talks over the country's name. Neighboring Greece has blocked Macedonia's accession to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation due to a long-running dispute regarding Macedonia's name, and has raised objections to its joining the EU.
Highlighting a key demand of the minority's parties in joining the government - to make Albanian an official language - parliamentary speaker Talat Xhaferi opened Tuesday's session in Albanian.
It went on to say that Turkey sincerely hopes, "that the new government, formed after a longstanding political crisis in Macedonia, will bring peace to the people of Macedonia and ensure unity and solidarity, thus bring stability to the country".
"A lot will now depend on the institutions of the EU and key member states, whether they will be willing to push for both a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and EU perspective for Macedonia to both encourage domestic reforms and unblock the process", Florian Bieber, the director of the Center for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, said in an email.
