Macedonia is not only facing an energy crisis but also an economic crisis. Inflation is in double digits, poverty is galloping, and standards are falling. The thesis of the government is that there is a crisis everywhere and this must be endured, I must say that it is just an empty phrase. Indeed, the crisis is ubiquitous in global frameworks, but the bottom line is that the consequences in Macedonia are devastating. Double prices of products, devalued salaries, growth of unemployment and companies that are about to close – this is the picture for today in Macedonia, pointed out the leader of VMRO-DPMNE, Hristijan Mickoski.

He recalled that the annual inflation rate in September reached 18.7%, which places us among the countries with the highest inflation in Europe.

The leader of the opposition emphasized that Macedonian citizens pay the most expensive electricity compared to the citizens of other countries in the region. Citizens in Serbia, BiH, Turkey, Kosovo, Montenegro pay far cheaper electricity than citizens in Macedonia.

What the government called yesterday “a new set of measures for financial support of vulnerable categories of citizens, pensioners, and companies”, is insufficient, symbolic, and represents only a marketing trick to deceive the public that something is being done, while companies are closing and the economy is slowly but surely is surely dying, said Mickoski.

Mickoski emphasized that the real cure for the people, for business, for inflation and for the energy crisis was not in the set of measures announced yesterday. Again, there was nothing about how domestically we will stabilize the price of electricity, and how we will deal with the energy crisis in the medium term. Inflation is strongly conditioned by the increase in the price of electricity that companies transfer to final products.

Namely, we first propose that the surplus electricity produced by the former ELEM, today’s AD ESM, which occurs during the night and the weekend, be given to the economy at a price that is productive for the former ELEM AD, today’s AD ESM. According to our calculations, that price will not exceed 80 euros per megawatt hour. And, the application period for this measure should be from November 1, 2022 until the end of the crisis, April 30, 2023. And then it will continue depending on the new regulation of the situation that is happening in Macedonia as well as in Europe, said Mickoski.

According to him, the second proposal envisaged that any company that will pay a price of electricity that is above the price of the regulated electricity market, of electricity, which is prescribed by the Energy Regulatory Commission tariff and amounts to an average of 200 euros per megawatt hour, each price above that which the companies will pay, half of the difference will be taken by the state.

According to our calculations and according to the measures that we are proposing and according to the first measure that we are proposing, we are talking about 50 million euros in aid for the economy to preserve jobs, to continue to produce, to maintain exports so that this does not happen to us closing of companies and a literal exodus of skilled labor. Any price per megawatt hour that the companies will pay, which will be higher than the one regulated according to the tariff for small consumers of ERC, half of the costs will be paid by the government in the form of a subsidy, he said.

Furthermore, Mickoski says, we propose an intervention in the Personal Income Law and we will submit that initiative to the Parliament, during this or next week, which will delay the gradual taxation.

It will come into effect on January 1, 2023, and will directly affect the standard of citizens, and will also affect the financial liquidity of companies. Therefore, within the framework of the Parliament, we will submit an initiative to postpone again the application of this law, which is the Personal Income Law, that is, to be more precise, that the graduated taxation be postponed for another year, that is, until December 31, 2023.

The fifth measure that Mickoski proposes involves the desterilization of the cash registers in the National Bank. There we believe that there are between 150 and 160 million denars of money from the banks from the funds that are recorded in the treasury records. To desterilize them with reduced emission of treasury bills and to return that money back to the banks, and then the banks to market that money to the economy, i.e. to make it available to the economy, which will help the liquidity of the companies, and the jobs will be preserved.

These are five measures that mean direct mitigation of the consequences on the standard of citizens, saving jobs and supporting companies to continue working normally so that they can employ our citizens, people who will feed their families through the work in those companies, Mickoski stressed.