Parliament Speaker Trajko Veljanoski has scheduled a parliamentary meeting for 10 April. It is going to be the first test of whether Parliament has restored normalcy following the events of 24 December or not.  That is going to depend on the decision of whether the MPs of SDSM and their coalition partners return to Parliament, for which they have not yet assumed a clear stance, Utrinski vesnik comments in its Saturday issue.

From 24 December until early March when it went into recess due to the local elections, Parliament was operating without the opposition which is why there was no debate over crucial issues. During that period, the Parliament’s Rules of Procedure changed, too, which was much criticized by the international community.

Among the MPs of SDSM, who refuse to make any official statements, there is a dilemma over whether their presence in Parliament, immediately after the political agreement brokered by Commissioner Stefan Fule was reached, spelled the end of their boycott. Most of them believe that their presence at the meeting on 2 March, when the extension of the deadlines for submitting candidates for mayors and council members was voted through, made it clear that they ended their boycott and were ready to take full part in the Parliament’s work.