Following the SDSM Central Committee meeting in Ohrid, Zoran Zaev announced that he will purge up to eight ministers and a number of lower level Government officials.

SDSM also rotated well known party officials into the Executive Committee, with a few modest additions. Zaev defended the idea to backtrack on his promise of early elections by declaring his visit to Berlin and his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a success.

We accomplished our goal and we are going back to the reconstruction of thje Government. We will begin with no more than eight ministers, Zaev said.

Zaev was hoping to get Germany to lobby for the opening of EU accession talks with France, the Netherlands and Denmark, countries who are opposed to further enlargement moves at this time. But instead, the German vote in favor of enlargement itself became questionable. Merkel issued a non-committal press release after meeting Zaev, but Zaev declared that she promised him an accession date in September, and is using this to avoid the early elections.