© Nikolay Doichinov
Skopje
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North Macedonia started at midnight to fine its citizens who use non-replaced passports and driver’s licenses, even though the authorities failed to meet the deadline for replacing them.
According to the Prespa Treaty signed between Skopje and Athens in 2018, North Macedonia had until February 13 to replace all identity documents to reflect the change of its official name from the Republic of Macedonia to the Republic of North Macedonia.
However, this was not done and the political parties are blaming each other for the reasons
BTA reports that according to the Ministry of the Interior, only documents with the new name of the state will be accepted as valid.
North Macedonia will not be able to change the identity documents in time
President Stevo Pendarovski objected to citizens being fined for unchanged driver’s licenses, which they pay for themselves. He called on parliamentary parties to immediately pass changes to the Road Safety Act so that the old license plates can be used until they expire.
“No one can be punished for an unreplaced driver’s license, which did not happen through the fault of the citizens,” said the announcement from Pendarovski’s office.
Deputies from the ruling SDSM declared that they would introduce such amendments. The same was announced by the opposition VMRO-DPMNE, whose representative is Interior Minister Panche Toshkovski.
The minister explained that if the old passports were to be declared invalid at midnight, it would violate the European Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the constitution and decisions already made by the (European Court of Human Rights in) Strasbourg, because in practice it will mean a ban on the free movement of people.
In a message from VMRO-DPMNE earlier today, they blamed the Minister of Internal Affairs in the government of Dimitar Kovachevski, Oliver Spasovski, for the chaos created by the replacement of documents.
“For nine years (SDSM) had an interior minister. Spasovski should bear criminal responsibility for exposing the citizens to additional costs and despite knowing that the documents had to be changed, he did nothing regarding it.” says in the announcement of VMRO-DPMNE.
Media in North Macedonia also report tension at the technical points where stickers with NMK (North Macedonia) can be placed on car registration plates, the deadline for which also expires on Monday.
The issue of personal documents has also become a leading issue during the ongoing parliamentary debates on voting for new ministers in the technical government.
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