ISSN: 2560-1601 Vol. 31, No. 4 (MK) July 2020 North Macedonia external relations briefing: 2020 Parliamentary Elections: External Relations in the Electoral Programmes of Parliamentary Political Parties Adela Gjorgjioska 1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11. +36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft.
[email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: CHen Xin Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01 2020 Parliamentary Elections: External Relations in the Electoral Programmes of Parliamentary Political Parties Following the Parliamentary Elections held on July 15th, six political parties secured at least 1 MP seat in the Macedonian Parliament. The representation in the legislature for the period 2020-2024 will be distributed as follows: The SDSM-led coalition - 46 MPs; VMRO- DPMNE-led coalition - 44 MPs; Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) - 15 MPs. The coalition ASA (between the Alliance for Albanians and Alternative) - 12 MPs. Levica “The Left” - 2 MPs and the Democratic Party of Albanians - 1 MP. This report takes a look at the electoral programmes of each of these parties, focusing specifically on their proposed strategies with regards to foreign policy. SDSM-led coalition In May 2017, when the SDSM-DUI coalition government was formed one of its key pledges was EU and NATO integration. As part of this approach, two bilateral Agreements were signed with two neighbouring countries: the Prespa Agreement with Greece signed in June 2018 and the Friendship Treaty with Bulgaria in August 2017. The first entailed the country’s name change into North Macedonia and paved the way towards the country’s NATO membership in March 2020.