Zaev, Mickoski, Ahmeti and Kasami attend leaders’ meeting

A fresh round of talks has started following yesterday’s leaders’ meeting at the Skopje-based MPs Club, this time including only the leaders of the four main parliamentary parties – Zoran Zaev of SDSM, Ali Ahmeti of DUI, Hristijan Mickoski of VMRO-DPMNE and Bilal Kasami of Besa.

Thursday’s meeting takes place at the request of the VMRO-DPMNE leader, who said upon leaving yesterday that he had expressed ‘revolt’ over the fact that officials of all parliamentary parties hadn’t been invited to attend. Wednesday’s leaders’ meeting was attended by those parties represented in Parliament by at least two deputies..

Party leaders are expected to discuss the composition of the State Election Commission (SEC) and the coming referendum, especially the wording of the referendum question.

Prime Minister Zaev told reporters late on Wednesday that the referendum question could be ‘Are you in favor of EU and NATO membership by accepting the agreement between the Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Greece?’, adding that the referendum would be a consultative one.

The decision is considered final if at least 50 percent of the total number of registered voters cast their vote at the referendum, Zaev said.