The Buzz in North Macedonia: Interview with Elena Dimova-Ivanoska of Cakmakova Advocates

The Buzz in North Macedonia: Interview with Elena Dimova-Ivanoska of Cakmakova Advocates

North Macedonia
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“What we have currently is a technical government,“ says Elena Dimova-Ivanoska, Junior Partner at Cakmakova Advocates, “made up from both the current ruling coalition members and the opposition, and formed to oversee the period leading up to the parliamentary elections which were to take place this April.“ These plans were cut short by the COVID-19 crisis, when the technical government was handed a far more complex task to resolve.

North Macedonia has been under a state of emergency since March 18, with all legislative proceedings halted and all legislative power ceded to the technical government, which rules via decree. “The state of emergency is due to end on May 16,“ Dimova-Ivanoska says, "and what comes after that is still unclear. Still, the technical government has been more than active, with making legislative changes daily, sometimes even more than once!“ Dimova-Ivanoska reports most of these changes to have to do with health and the economy, but she describes the rate at which they are adopted and announced is “beyond fast.“

“The most important decree we’ve seen so far is the one that provides a stimulus for businesses of EUR 235 per employee, for April and May, which is contingent on the company’s not firing people and maintaining its head-counts until the end of July." This decree was passed on April 7, she says, and was “changed three times over the course of four weeks – and this immediately before the application deadline!“ The resulting legal uncertainty, she says, forced “a lot of businesses to wait with their applications until the deadline. We’re all waiting to see how this measure will work out in practice.“

Taking a wider angle, Dimova-Ivanoska reports that “a lot of companies have been hit hard by the crisis. Many people lost their jobs in the past few months, and a lot of businesses are working with limited capacity or have completely closed for the time being.“ Still, she says, she expects lay-off rates to drop, with more and more firms applying for the stimulus. “I think that the situation will be stabilized, come August/September,“ she says optimistically, “even though it will take a lot of time to get back to pre-crisis levels.“

Finally, Dimova-Ivanoska reports that online retail is booming right now. “Telecommunication companies, media companies, cable companies – they’re doing great right now, a lot of work is coming their way,“ she says. “Also, companies that produce medical devices and protection, disinfection materials, and the like have soared, as expected.“ She says that this switch to a more “online way of doing business“ constitutes a strong silver lining of the crisis. “Economic transactions, education, G2B, and G2C communication – these were all long overdue for an online overhaul. We can only hope that this trend continues post-crisis and that authorities invest in putting and keeping these systems in place.“

Editor's note: On May 18, CEE Legal Matters learned that the state of emergency in Northern Macedonia had been extended until May 30.