Murtezani: There is little hope in Brussels for constitutional changes with deferred effect, but the idea is not rejected en bloc

Skopje – The Minister for European Affairs Orhan Murtezani stated that during the meetings he recently had in Brussels along with Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski with high representatives of the European Union, including the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, they also discussed the idea of constitutional amendments for the inclusion of Bulgarians with deferred effect.

– The proposal of our Government for adopting the constitutional amendments with deferred effect was discussed, for which, I must be honest, there is not much hope from the institutions in Brussels that such a proposal would pass, but it is not dismissed outright. There is a certain dose of optimism that we will need to concretize. I think that the Government has a good basis when it says that the logic in the constitutional amendments should be similar to the one used when we joined NATO after changing the name. Namely, in the stages of changing the Constitution, there should be an additional amendment stating that the content will materialize, will come into force, after Bulgaria ratifies the agreement for the country’s accession to the European Union, said Murtezani in an interview for “360 degrees” on MRT 1.

Asked for a comment on Charles Michel’s message published on social networks after the meeting with Mickoski that it is now crucial to implement the obligations from the past, Murtezani said that Michel referred to the decisions of the Council that have already been made. – What we are receiving as a signal from the other side is the commitment for the process to move forward, he said.

Minister Murtezani states that so far he cannot say that the Government has a concrete plan that would succeed, but it is working on certain directions, which, he says, give hope and need to be clarified and materialized once Bulgaria gets a stable political government.

According to him, the decision for Albania to start negotiations by chapters shows that the accession process is not only alive but is proceeding at a much greater speed.

– What Montenegro has passed or done in the past six months, under normal circumstances, without Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, should have been completed in a period of 3 to 4 years. Therefore, I say that this moment should influence us to work even more on finding solutions and to catch up to quickly advance, said Murtezani. (September 30)