Parliament confirmed Tuntev’s resignation and rescheduled session on constitutional changes for 16h

Parliament Speaker Talat Xhaferi confirmed Wednesday the resignation of MP and SDSM member Tomislav Tuntev. He is set to assume the post manager of the Civil Aviation Agency.

Ruben Zemon, the PM’s adviser on multicultural society, interculturalism and intercultural communications, will replace Tuntev in the vacant MP seat.

The Parliament’s session on the constitutional revision has been delayed until 4 pm, said Parliament Speaker Talat Xhaferi without elaborating the reason behind the postponement.

Lawmakers are set to discuss 10 amendments to the draft-constitutional amendments, six coming from the Alliance for Albanians, three from BESA and one from the VMRO-DPMNE independent MP group.

The first constitutional amendments relates to the replacement of words “Republic of Macedonia” with “Republic of North Macedonia” and word “Macedonia” with “North Macedonia”, except in Article 36, which has a historic aspect and refers to “the special social rights of World War II fighters and all national-liberation wars of Macedonia.”

The second amendment replaces words “ASNOM decisions” in the Constitution’s Preamble with words “Proclamation of the First ASNOM Assembly” and adds the Ohrid Framework Agreement.

The third amendment will read “The Republic respects the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of neighboring countries”.

The fourth amendment refers to the emigrants, saying that ‘the Republic shall protect the rights and interests of its nationals residing or staying abroad, enhance their ties with the homeland without interfering in the sovereign rights of other countries and their domestic affairs.