A delegation of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) visited North Macedonia from 17 to 21 October 2022 as the first step in the preparation of a monitoring report.

The delegation held meetings with representatives of the government, local authorities, the Ombudsman, the Commission against Discrimination and civil society representatives in the capital and during field visits in Kumanovo. During these meetings and field visits, ECRI’s delegation gathered information on effective equality and access to rights, hate speech and hate-motivated violence, as well as integration and inclusion.

Following this visit, ECRI will adopt a report in 2023 containing a new set of recommendations on measures to be taken by the authorities to prevent and combat racism and intolerance in the country. The two priority recommendations presented to the government at the end of the visit referred to the need to grant the Commission against Discrimination and the Ombudsman´s Office full financial autonomy in the use of their respective budgets and to address the long-standing problems concerning identity documents and personal identification numbers for several hundred Roma people who did not have sufficient proof of identity following the independence of North Macedonia.

The implementation of both priority recommendations, as they will appear in the future report, will be reviewed within two years after the publication of the report as part of ECRI’s interim follow-up procedure.

For more information on previous reports on North Macedonia, please visit Country monitoring in North Macedonia page.