Skopje, 16 January 2024 (MIA) - Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani has said in a Facebook post that the Government approved Tuesday amendments to the Law on Restrictive Measures by including US and UK blacklists as grounds for sanctioning by institutions in North Macedonia.

FM Osmani told a press briefing last week that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is starting a public debate on proposed amendments to the Law on Restrictive Measures, which would introduce US and UK legal acts as a basis for local courts to order legal sanctions be levied against individuals and companies.

"The Law on Restrictive Measures regulates imposing, modifying and terminating restrictive measures," FM Osmani said, adding that the basis for those sanctions until now were United Nations Security Council resolutions, European Union legal acts, decisions of several international organizations the country was a member of, and requests of other countries' competent authorities regarding terrorism and weapons proliferation.

"What we propose in these amendments to the Law,"  Osmani said, "is to add the legal acts of the United States and the legal acts of the United Kingdom as a basis for imposing restrictive measures in the state."

Osmani said besides international security and democracy threats, the updated law would sanction corruption, abuse of office and hybrid threats.

Also, he said, after receiving evidence of such wrongdoing, the Prosecutor's Office would need to immediately launch an investigation and if the probe led to charges being filed in a court of law, the updated Law on Restrictive Measures would temporarily prevent the individual from holding public office or the company from participating in public procurement.

The US Department of State recently added on its "blacklist" several more familiar names: Former Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Kocho Angjushev, businessmen Orce Kamchev and Sergey Samsonenko, Struga Mayor Ramiz Merko. They joined fugitive former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and the convicted former head of the country's Administration for Security and Counterintelligence Sasho Mijalkov.

MIA file photo