North Macedonia at Crossroads: EU Growth Plan Demands Action
The country stands at the crossroads between the old system and its new European future. The Growth Plan and Reform Agenda are not merely prerequisites for integration, they are instruments for healing our society. Integration and growth are our compass, but reforms must be our own decisions, our policies, our national maturation. Corruption is a systemic issue, not an individual deviation, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said at roundtable on the challenges and benefits of the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans on Wednesday, CE Report quotes MIA.
Mickoski said that corruption in our country is not merely a phenomenon, but it is part of how certain parts of society operate, a system that protects itself.
"If we want to join the European Union, if we want growth, we must dismantle that system. We have inherited situations where citizens feel humiliated, powerless, and forced to “pay to receive,” whether it’s medical care, legal protection, or some administrative service. A state like that cannot progress," Mickoski said.
According to him, even more concerning is the fact that the institutions tasked with fighting corruption - the prosecution and the judiciary - are often silent, ineffective, or under political influence.
Mickoski stated that judicial reforms are the most urgent, and that without them, all other reforms are meaningless.
At the roundtable held at the Government, remarks were also delivered by the Minister of European Affairs, Orhan Murtezani, Swedish Ambassador to North Macedonia, Ami Larsson Jain, and Vladimir Drobnjak, Croatia’s former chief EU negotiator and current UNOPS expert.
