Skopje, 25 November 2025 (MIA) - We have a clear plan and a clear focus. Our strategy is to be the best, and we will achieve that even if some don’t appreciate it. If anyone believes that bilateral issues should block our EU membership, then I’m sorry, but there’s nothing we can do about it, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said Tuesday when asked which laws from the Reform Agenda are expected to move to parliamentary procedure.

“In the Reform Agenda, we have the adoption and implementation of the Energy Law. That is one of the 12 steps. The law has been adopted, harmonized with the EU Office, and submitted to Parliament. However, it is not counted as completed because the bylaws have not yet been passed. According to the Energy Community, the bylaws carry a grace period, nine months for one group and eighteen months for another. This makes it impossible for the system to be fully operational by July 2025, since those deadlines extend into late 2026. Therefore, we have two options: either remove this step and set the deadline for December 2026, or accept the adoption of the Energy Law as aligned with the European Commission,” PM Mickoski said.

The second step, he explained, involves initiating the liberalization of the household electricity market, which includes all consumers currently under the regulated market.

“We will not proceed with this, for the simple reason that doing so would result in households and all regulated-market consumers facing an increase of at least 30 to 35 percent in their electricity bills. We will deliberately avoid such a move,” he said at a press conference on handing out self-employment certificates within the Operational Employment Plan.

Mickoski said that the third step involves harmonizing the Electoral Code with the OSCE and ODIHR recommendations. He note that this will be done and that he sees no reason for MPs not to support it in Parliament, considering it is a reform law backed by the European Commission.

Regarding the laws on the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the courts, and the public prosecution and judicial service, he said they are ready to accept what is being requested.

“The main request concerns employment and promotions not depending on the Government’s opinion. No problem, they won’t depend on it. They should prepare it, and it should be approved by the Judicial Council or the Council of Public Prosecutors. The Government will only be informed, that’s fine, we will accept that. As for the budget, we will set a lower threshold, that is, a minimum budget value for the Prosecutor’s Office and for the courts, which will be higher than the average or median budget of the member states covered by the Council of Europe. And we will implement that as well,” Mickoski said.

He added that the new Law on the Judicial Council was approved at a government session and is currently being aligned while awaiting an opinion from the EU Office. He expects that by the end of December it will also be adopted in Parliament.

Speaking about new employments at the Agency for Management of Confiscated Property, he explained that the current systematization was created years ago and needs to be updated. Once a new systematization is prepared, the necessary approvals from the Ministry and budget allocations for the new positions must follow. “And we will complete that by the end of this year,” Mickoski stated.

He explained that one of the steps includes preparing a plan to make three percent of public buildings energy-efficient.

“My question to the European Commission was whether this refers to three percent of the total number of buildings or three percent of their total floor space. If there are 100 buildings, three percent means three buildings. But if public buildings encompass one million square meters, then three percent is a significantly larger share. At a government session, we adopted a report from the Ministry of Energy, prepared with an expert engaged by the European Commission, which identified the priorities. We instructed the Ministry of Finance to secure the necessary funds, and it has reached out to the French Development Agency. With that, we have completed this step. We now only need clarification on whether the target refers to the number of buildings or the total floor area, so that we can adjust the plan for the next three years, and thereby finalize this step,” he said.

With regard to the liberalization of railway transport, he said that the minister of transport is already working on that issue with the EU Office, and he expects that step to be completed by the end of the year.

“The Law on Audio-Visual Media Services is ready, but we were waiting for the provisions related to alignment with ‘Roam at Home,’ the EU initiative. We will submit them together to Parliament. That will not happen this year. Therefore, the minister of digital transformation was instructed to submit the law, in its current form, already aligned with the EU Office, first to the Government and then to Parliament. So I expect this law as well to be adopted by the end of the year,” Mickoski said.

He also mentioned the request to create a registry of joint-stock companies and legal entities in which the state holds any share, whether majority or minority.

“We don’t have such a law. We engaged experts from the Faculty of Law, the law has been drafted, and it has been submitted for review to the Ministry of European Affairs and the Ministry of Economy and Labor. So we are awaiting feedback from them, after which we will take it to a Government session and submit it to the EU Office. I expect this step to be completed as well,” Mickoski told reporters.

Photo: MIA