The dispute over amending the Constituiton veered off today into an argument over whether the coat of arms of Macedonia should be changed into a historic Macedonian amblem. The issue was raised by former VMRO-DPMNE member of Parliament Aleksandar Spasenovski who, in an interview, discussed what concessions VMRO-DPMNE could ask for in exchange for its vote to amend the Constitution and allow the Bulgarian minority in the Preamble – which is a key request from Sofia to unblock Macedonia’s EU accession.

The party formally proposes that the Preamble is restored to its original form – and Macedonia is named the nation state of the Macedonians, before citing a long list of ethnic minorities including the Bulgarians. Representatives from the ruling DUI-SDSM coalition have also broached the idea of amnesty for VMRO-DPMNE officials and supporters imprisoned as part of the campaign of political persecution.

The sense of the largest share of the citizens of this state, especially of the Macedonians, is that something is unjustly taken away from them, that they are being forced to make concessions with which they lose their essence, Spasenovski said, while restoring the idea that the coat of arms is changed.

Macedonia and Belarus are the only two countries in Europe that still have communist style coat of arms – in the case of Macedonia it depicts a sunrise over a mountain – either Sar or Pirin mountain, and a body of water – the river Vardar or lake Ohrid or the Aegean Sea – interpretations vary, framed by wheat tobacco leaves, poppies and a typical Macedonian folk dress band. VMRO-DPMNE removed the red communist star from the amblem barely 10 years ago and had enough support in Parliament to change the coat of arms altogether but the initiative collapsed during the SDSM led Colored Revolution. The coat of arms the party proposed would have a red lion on a golden shield with a castle on top – a version of a historic symbol used in medieval times but also evoking Alexander the Great and his use of the lion symbol. Bulgaria has a similar coat of arms.

VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski said that the idea to change the coat of arms is not an initiative that is connected with the demands to change the Constitution. “I will say it again, there will be no change of the Constitution, under Bulgarian pressure, in this Parliament. And yes, in the past we had consensus to change the coat of arms. We can get to it right now, and I invite the Parliament, Kovacevski, Ali Ahmeti and the others who were agreed with this idea in the past to revive it. The heraldic option that was proposed would represent unity in Macedonia, and DUI was agreed to change the current coat of arms which is reminiscent of communist Yugoslavia, Mickoski said.

Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski was disparaging of professor Spasenovski’s idea, and implied that VMRO-DPMNE is using him to broach new proposals.

Meanwhile, the Justice Ministry named a group of mid level law professors and experts to its committee that would draft the amendments Bulgaria wants to see in the Macedonian Constitution. The group includes die-hard SDSM loyalists like professor Ana Cupeska and judge Margarita Caca Nikolovska, a number of ethnic Albanian law experts and a few historians. The opposition is not participating in this committee.