News
8/16/2017 13:39
Today, the Secretariat for European Affairs organised a panel discussion entitled "Implementation of the measures from Plan 3-6-9 in the part of the elections". Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia in charge of European affairs Bujar Osmani opened the discussion.
"If we can symbolically call the elections in December a new beginning, then, the upcoming local elections are an end to the first stage, they are a turning point in which we can assess whether Macedonia is returned to the European and Euro-Atlantic path, or not," said Osmani. He added that, for the Secretariat and for him as coordinator of the reform plan, the upcoming local elections are a crown to the first part - part 3, from Plan 3-6-9. According to the Deputy Prime Minister, the period immediately prior to the announcement of the local elections is the right moment to discuss the implementation of the measures in front of the key institutions and the civil society organizations that have many years of experience in monitoring of the election process.
"The new parliamentary majority and the new government are continuously advocating for promotion of the electoral process and are actively supporting all the initiatives that are moving in this direction. Hence, in Plan 3-6-9, the first priority area is the elections, which is one of the areas with the largest number of measures or a total of 11," said Deputy Prime Minister Osmani. In his address, he explained to the attendees that the recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR and the Venice Commission were taken into account when defining the measures, with a focus on those that could be fulfilled until the upcoming elections without any legal changes. This criterion, pointed Osmani, is due to the short period of time, but also because of the recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR, in order not to intervene by amending the electoral legislation immediately before the elections.