Skopje, 31 January 2024 (MIA) - The VMRO-DPMNE parliamentary group said Wednesday that it will submit 21 amendments to the draft law on administrative officers, which is currently in a parliamentary procedure and is to be adopted with the use of the 'EU-flag'.

The Parliamentary Committee on European Affairs will hold another session on Wednesday to debate the law. On Tuesday, trade unions demanded a wider public debate to be held first.

"For this law we will submit 21 amendments, although unfortunately, due to haste, there are many technical errors, meaning that 15 amendments need corrections, while the other six are legitimate and one is proposed by the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia (SSM), on including the minimum wage that would help with the linear increase of other wages," said MP Bojan Stojanovski.

Regarding the other laws in the package proposed by the Ministry of Information Society and Administration (MISA), the parliamentary group announced that it will propose additional 16 amendments, but they do not exclude the possibility that the Committee itself might intervene.

Additional Deputy Minister of Information Society and Administration Stefan Andonovski noted that it is unfortunate that a law is being pushed with the use of the 'EU flag' at the end of mandate, which has little to do with European criteria and does not include the European Commission's recommendations.

Andonovski added that he was unable to react to the legal solutions because he had not been invited to the Government's session, noting that "the work was already done and the laws were sent to Parliament."

Trade Unions are demanding a public debate on the bill, which would also include their representatives. 

"Yesterday we heard the minister say that we have been included and informed about the process - that is not true. The Unions are not involved in this process, but we submitted serious remarks to all parliamentary group coordinators. It is unfortunate that, at the end of the mandate, they are trying to push a legal procedure that will ultimately harm public sector employees to whom the Law on Administrative Officers applies. It means that they will receive Mden 2,500 less on their salaries starting from March 2024. They will lose their rights to the bonus added with the same law in 2023. Alignment of wages takes place in March 2025, but they probably mixed up the year, so they plan to reduce minimum wage in 2024 as a basis for calculating the wages for all employees," said SSM President Slobodan Trendafilov. ssh/nn/

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