Skopje, 20 November 2025 (MIA) - Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski told journalists Thursday he thinks 0.35 percent of GDP would be an acceptable budget for the country’s judiciary and prosecution. Mickoski said the country is allocating more for the judiciary than 75 percent of EU member states.

“I have been studying this issue in detail during this period, including in terms of the budget that is being allocated for the judiciary and the prosecution. Even the Venice Commission had remarks about the article that determines the judicial budget. A few days ago, I provided a more comprehensive analysis of the state of judicial budgets in Europe. And based on that analysis, carried out and financed by a European institution – the Council of Europe, for data from 2022, published in 2024, we concluded that we as a country are allocating more budget funds for the judiciary than 75 percent of EU member states. We allocated 0.39 percent of GDP in 2022, France is at 0.2, Germany at 0.3. The European average is roughly 0.3 percent,” Mickoski said.

The Prime Minister said the country cannot afford to increase the budget to 1.3 percent – 0.8 percent for the judiciary, and 0.5 percent for the prosecution.

“That would be around USD 260 million annually, which we don’t have. On the other hand, we are being asked to implement a fiscal consolidation, since the previous government did not carry out a fiscal consolidation, so we managed to reduce the budget deficit from just under 5 percent this year to below 4 percent, and next year we are trying to reach 3.5 percent. So, I think that 0.25 percent is an acceptable budget for the courts and 0.1 percent for the prosecutors, or a total of 0.35 percent of our GDP,” Mickoski stressed.

PM Mickoski reiterated that some of the presidents of the courts in the country have a monthly wage of Mden 180.000, or around EUR 3.000, while noting that he, as Prime Minister earns Mden 155.000 or roughly EUR 2.500 per month.

“Judges don’t make less than Mden 100.000. A beginner judge, for example, in Macedonia, has a gross annual salary of EUR 19.134, while in Slovenia this figure stands at EUR 34.000. So, around 85 percent more in a situation when Slovenia’s GDP is 350 percent higher than ours, which is four times more. But we will draft a legislation that will allow the Judicial Council and the Council of Public Prosecutors to approve employment and promotion plans, while only informing us. We won’t meddle. They will be able to do things the way they want, the way they see fit. We, as a government, are responsible to the citizens about how public funds are spent,” Mickoski said.

The Prime Minister said “a few people are contaminating the huge majority of honest judges and prosecutors”.

“This is our position, and I am ready to take a political hit by being criticized about this issue in future [European Commission] reports,” Mickoski added.

Photo: MIA