Anti-corruption Conference held in Skopje

The Southeast European Leadership for Development and Integrity (SELDI) organised in Skopje a Regional Anti-corruption Forum. The speakers at the forum focused on the current situations with corruption in Macedonia and the attempts of the authorities for its elimination. “The government of North Macedonia has made a significant progress on this field with the increase of the transparency of numerous processes conducted inside and by the state institutions. However, there is still a lot to be done, like the adoption of the Draft-law on Public Prosecution, a matter that should rise above politics, because it is very important for the country. The opposition also holds the responsibility to be more constructive and to participate in these processes,” said the Deputy US Ambassador to Macedonia Jennifer Littlejohn. Frederikes Janmaat from the EU Delegation to Macedonia pointed out that the corruption rates in the countries of South-East Europe and Turkey is on the rise in the past few years. “Rule of law and good rule should not be mixed up with technical reforms. We support the harmonisation of the legislative of these countries to that applied in EU so that they can tackle corruption,” Janmaat underlined. The President of Macedonia Stevo Pendarovski commented on the “Racketeering” case in scope of the discussion about struggle against corruption. “We have to resolve this case and all other open cases completely not only because it will ease the processes for start of membership talks with EU, but above all because we want to live in better society. We cannot hope to become part of EU if we cannot establish rule of law,” Pendarovski said.