Under the changes, every student in the country until March 15, 2023 will be paid 120 denars per meal (2,400 denars a month). Opposition MPs voted in abstention after demanding that students should be paid 160 instead of 120 denars.

Bojan Stojanovski from the opposition VMRO-DPMNE said that with this law students will receive 120 denars until March 2023, assessing that with the talks between the government representatives and the students who represented their colleagues, an agreement was reached “to buy five or six months”. Stojanovski pointed out that among the students who negotiated there were students “who did not come from SDSM and DUI headquarters”.

According to him, the Government should have allocated 200,000 euros more per year so that those approximately 40,000 students could receive 40 denars more. Stojanovski announced that they will submit amendments to the Budget for 2023 for increasing the amount for student meals, as well as for the renovation of the student dormitories.