For a second day in a row, the Parliament session where the four amendments that rename Macedonia into North Macedonia was postponed. It is now scheduled to resume on Friday at noon.

The decision follows a day in which Prime Minister Zoran Zaev acknowledged he still doesn’t have the necessary two thirds majority in Parliament, which according to him is 80 votes (many legal experts say it should be 81).

A demand by the small ethnic Albanian party BESA to completely erase any mention of the Macedonian nationality from the law accompanying the constitutional amendments put Zaev in a bind, as the group of eight former VMRO-DPMNE members of Parliament who were blackmailed and bribed into supporting the amendments is rejecting this version of the law. Zaev said that if he fails, he will convene the SDSM party Central Committee and ask it to decide on his responsibility for the situation.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is in the first day of her two days visit to Greece, where she is expected to apply pressure on Greek politicians to support the deal and finally lift their veto on Macedonia’s EU and NATO accession. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras insists that he has 151 votes in Parliament for the deal with Zaev, and that he will put it forward as soon as the Macedonian Parliament adopts the changes to the Constitution. But, Tsipras could lose a vote of no confidence in his Government and has also announced that he will not propose an immediate ratification of the important protocol for Macedonian NATO accession.