Today, in the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Government in charge of European Affairs, Fatmir Besimi, PhD, in front of the members of the European Affairs Committee and the representatives of the international community, presented the purpose, structure and content of the National Programme for the Adoption of the Acquis - NPAA (revision 2015).

The Deputy Prime Minister Besimi stressed the importance of the process of European integration of the Republic of Macedonia emphasising that despite the challenges we are facing at the moment, we should stay focused on the implementation of the reforms of the European agenda and with the same commitment and to address determination the recommendations contained in the EC Reports.

Now, more than ever, we have to show with concrete activities that the Macedonian democratic institutions have the capacity to face the challenges and stay focused on what is a strategic commitment for all stakeholders, the membership in the EU – underlined Besimi.

Also, Besimi informed that during the preparation of the NPAA by the Secretariat for European Affairs, in order to achieve greater transparency and inclusiveness in the process of European integration, several meetings with representatives of relevant state institutions, civil society, media and business community were held, and a public call for the civil society organisations was pubblished to submit their proposals for overcoming the findings of the Report, which were forwarded to the working groups.

In 2014, from the anticipated 57 laws, 21 laws were adopted. From the planned 143 bylaws for 2014, 76 were adopted, while 2 are in governmental procedure, 9 are in an interministerial procedure, and 4 are in preparation and they will be followed by means of the NPAA revision 2015.

Key elements during the revision of the NPAA 2015 were addressing the findings of the European Commission’s Report 2014 and the Enlargement Strategy 2014-2015, provision of further fulfillment of the priority reform objectives, provision of further realisation of the obligations under the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, as well as further harmonisation with the EU acquis.

In the content and in the NPAA 2015 Revision, the plans for harmonisation of the national legislation with the EU legislation, the necessary momentum for strengthening the institutions to implement the legislation, as well as the necessary resources for realisation are included.

Within the frameworks of the NPAA 2015 about 1007 activities are predicted, of which 57 are laws that are harmonised with the 69 EU measures and 91 are bylaws that are to be harmonised with 120 EU measures.In terms of human resources of planning, monitoring and implementation of the NPAA, 75 institutions are included, with about 13,698 regularly employed servants.

For implementation of the activities of the NPAA 2015, about EUR 727 million were allocated for administrative support, strategic priorities of the Government, capital projects and development programmes. For the implementation of this programme EU funds as well as the bilateral donor support are used.

Regarding the translation of the EU legislation, around 30,000 pages for translation and around 18,000 pages of legal acts for revision from the Official Journal of the EU, the Republic of Macedonia and other documents relevant for EU integration has been planned.
In his address, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Government Fatmir Besimi, underlined the key priorities in terms of meeting the political criteria, electoral reform, decentralisation, public administration reform, police reform, cooperation with civil society, fight against corruption, promotion of freedom of expression and media, minority rights, regional cooperation and economic criteria priorities. The key priorities were emphasised in terms of the ability to undertake the obligations of the EU membership in the area of free movement of goods, financial services, information society and media, agriculture and rural development, transport policy, energy, social policy and employment, regional policy, justice, freedom and security.

At the end of the NPAA presentation in front of the members of the European Affairs Committee in the Assembly, the Deputy Prime Minister Besimi said that this is part of the key priorities in the implementation of the reforms of the EU agenda and noted that due to the importance of the upcoming period, everyone must show full commitment and maximum constructive focus on the realisation of the selected priorities and reforms.