A total of seven amendments were submitted in Parliament, on the four proposed changes to the Macedonian Constitution meant to rename the country into North Macedonia.

One of the amendments, submitted by the group of eight former VMRO-DPMNE members of Parliament, provides that the four amendments are null and void if all obligations from agreement, which is meant to roll back all changes if Greece fails to honor its obligations.

Three of the proposed changes are focused on the description of the nationality adopted under the Prespa treaty with Greece, which is proposed as “Macedonian/citizen of the Republic of North Macedonia. Two members of Parliament from the Alliance of Albanians asked that the word “Macedonian” is deleted from this description, so as not to assume the national identity of ethnic Albanian citizens. The Government insists that nationality in this article reflects only on the citizenship, and not the ethnic identity.

The group of eight members of Parliament, and Muhamed Zekiri from SDSM, separately proposed that the word “Macedonian” remains in this article but is clarified with an explanation that this does not assume the ethnic identity of the citizen.

Both Alliance of Albanians members also asked for a specific definition of the Macedonian borders, which would name Kosovo as one of the five neighboring countries.

These proposals will be put before the Committee on constitutional affairs of the Parliament, whose work VMRO-DPMNE will boycott. In the end, the ruling parties need to reach a two thirds majority in Parliament for the amendments to be adopted. The SDSM led Government, which proposed the amendments to rename Macedonia, wants to get them adopted until mid January.