Skopje, 2 June 2025 (MIA) – There is no political agenda behind lowering the threshold for trade union representativeness, rather, it is the result of discussions at the last meeting with all unions, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said Monday, responding to a journalist's question about why legal amendments are being introduced to lower the representativeness criteria for unions.

“The idea came from our last discussion with the unions. We effectively have two unions operating in Macedonia. To avoid confusion over who is in or out, or who is representative or not, we agreed all unions should be included in the Economic and Social Council, enabling unified dialogue. So this isn’t about any political motive,” Mickoski explained.

A proposal has been submitted to the Macedonian Parliament to reduce the required threshold for trade union representativeness. Instead of the current ten percent of the total number of employees nationwide, trade unions would in the future only need five percent. A group of MPs has already submitted the proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Law.

Photo: MIA