In a press briefing, the Kovacevski Government told the press that they have the support of the US administration in demanding that the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party accepts the Bulgarian demands for a constitutional change. This is the result of Kovacevski’s visit to Washington, after which US diplomat Gabriel Escobar also called on VMRO-DPMNE to accept the demand that the Bulgarian nation is included in the Preamble of the Constitution. The slim ruling majority does not have the votes to amend the Constitution and is reduced to asking VMRO for their support – the opposition party has ruled this out insisting that the current Parliament was elected without this issue being known to the public and therefore it does not have mandate to vote on such an important matter.

The US, through their high officials, emphasize the support that we have to continue on our European path. This is a direct message to the opposition – that ideological differences can’t be used to obstruct the progress of the state and the making of decisions that benefit the citizens, the Government sources told the journalists at the briefing.

The Government officials again repeated Kovacevski’s position that there are disagreements in VMRO and that some of their members of Parliament are having second thoughs and could be persuaded to vote in favor of the Bulgarian demands. This evokes the process of imposing the Prespa Treaty with Greece on the country, when VMRO members of Parliament were arrested, blackmailed and bribed to vote for the name change. But Kovacevski’s camp has been repeating this for months, and instead, it seems that his own numbers are far less certain. Accepting the Bulgarian demands is very unpopular in the ruling camp as well, and important SDSM officials have broken with the party over this issue.