Today, 24.02.2016 the Secretariat for European Affairs supported by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) held a workshop on fundamental rights in the Republic of Macedonia.

Representatives from the civil society organisations participated on the workshop and Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, Fatmir Besimi PhD, Deputy Ambassador of Federal Republic of Germany in Macedonia, Mr. Hans Helge Sander and the Director of the GIZ Office in Macedonia, Mr. James Macbeth had their introductory remarks.

The Secretariat for European Affairs (SEA), supported by the Project of the German- Macedonian bilateral cooperation "Support to the Secretariat for European Affairs" implemented by GIZ (German Agency for International Cooperation), has analysed the national institutional arrangements in the area of fundamental rights. The result of this analysis is the mapping of all national stakeholders involved in the field of fundamental rights, their responsibilities as well as identifying the existing coordination structures in this area. This analysis forms the basis for commencement of due diligence to determine the level of compliance with the EU.

Given the importance of fundamental rights and the fact that the new approach to the negotiations focuses on chapters 23 and 24, and also the fact that it is a large material which is defined in many laws, strategies, responsibilities are portfolios of many institutions, and there is often a shared responsibility, we have initiated and conducted this process of analysis of the national institutional arrangements in the field of fundamental rights in order to obtain a clearer picture of the overall mechanism and see where there is a need for improvements in the legal and institutional framework, said Deputy Prime Minister Besimi in his address.

The purpose of this workshop is to present the results of the current activities aimed at identifying national structure for fundamental rights, as well as exchange of information, opinions, experiences and suggestions to improve the coordination structures and monitoring mechanisms.

Today"s debate is a step closer to the second phase of this project, when it will be possible to proceed with the due diligence in all these areas of fundamental rights, or selection of those areas that you need to keep the focus on in the future.