Socialist Pedro Sanchez was re-elected as Prime Minister of Spain, after the narrowly divided Congress approved him by a majority of two votes.

Sanchez and his coalition partner Podemos had to count on other parties abstaining from the session to achieve their slim majority. Among those parties that helped Sanchez be re-appointed by abstaining from the Congress were the Catalan nationalists.

The vote was important for Macedonia as well, as it expects that Spain will ratify Macedonia’s NATO accession protocol. All other NATO member states ratified Macedonia’s accession, but Spain was unable to do so because of its political crisis. This was used by former Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and his SDSM party as an excuse why the elections, scheduled for April 12th, could possibly be postponed.

But now that the Spanish Government is in place it is expected that the ratification will happen until mid February, when the Macedonian Parliament dissolves. Another option on the table – if Spain continues to drag out its ratification – is for this Macedonian Parliament to ratify the protocol without waiting on the Spaniards.