English
Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski expects that Macedonia will remain a regional leader in reforms in the June progress report prepared by the EU, which would mean additional funding for Macedonia in the Growth Plan.
I am glad and encouraged by the information coming from a European media outlet yesterday that there are ever stronger announcements from high European politicians that there will be a top-up in funding for the three of the six Western Balkan countries who are more advanced in delivering on thereform agenda. We have already defined our priorities and we will present them, said Mickoski.
The Prime Minister said that he expects the support to amount to as much as 240 million EUR, a third of which will go to budget liquidity and the rest will be given in the form of grants or soft loans. Some of the latest reform steps include reducing the amount of energy the state ELEM/ESM company delivers to 70 percent, leaving 30 percent of its production to be sold on the free market, and changes to the law on corporations. Work remains to be done in the construction of purification stations in Tetovo and Bitola and the regional garbage site for the east of the country.
The Prime Minister also announced that he is prepared to talk to the opposition about the proposed Electoral Code, that was already graded positively by OSCE and ODIHR, but is blocked in Parliament by the opposition parties SDSM and Levica. One compromise could be to have the Macedonian diaspora voters vote not electronically, as was originally planned, but through mail – which should alleviate the concerns raised by SDSM.