Although the basic framework for participation of the CSOs in the policy‐making is set out in the Constitution, the Law on Government, the Law on Local-Self Government and etc., as well as in the Strategy for Cooperation of the Government with the Civil Society, capacities in ministries and Government institutions for engaging with civil society is uneven. There is no system for ensuring participation of CSOs in the policy‐making process. This includes the absence of a mechanism to facilitate the regular, timely and meaningful involvement of civil society in the process of European integration, as prescribed by the EC, including participation in the drafting of national development plans, operational programmes and the accompanying strategic documents. CSOs are rarely consulted concerning IPA programming.
While a number of CSOs have good examples of cooperation and dialog with the relevant ministries, including the signing of Memorandums of understanding and/or cooperation, formal agreements of cooperation have rarely resulted in a significant role for CSOs in drafting laws, strategy or policy statements. In many areas, CSO relations with government are informal and continue to rely on personal relations and individual motivations of government officials.
Although systems are not in place to enlist civil society in dialogue, there are positive examples where CSO representatives have participated in the working groups tasked with drafting the laws, in particular, such as: Working Group for the Law on Citizens’ Associations and Foundations, Working Group for Law on Volunteering, Working Group for the Law on Protection from Discrimination.
On the adoption of the Strategy, a number of ministries and departments harmonized their programmes and activities, wherever relevant, with the objectives and measures set out in the Strategy. The few ministries which have made real steps to include civil society in policy dialogue and are better prepared, in terms of capacity, for this task include, Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, the Agency of Youth and Sport and the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning.
Preparation of the Law on Associations and Foundations
Working group by the Ministry of Justice was established in May 2007, comprised of representatives from the Civic Platform of Macedonia (CPM), represented by the Foundation Open Society Institute Macedonia (FOSIM) and Macedonian Center for International Cooperation (MCIC). The working group had intensive activity in 2009 and 2010, when numerous meetings were held with active participation of several ministries, civil society organizations and university experts. During this process the CSOs members of the working group were actively involved in drafting of the provisions. The working group had two meetings with the Justice Minister, Mihajlo Manevski, and the draft law was promoted by the Minister at the start of 2010. In this period the CSOs members of the working group have actively supported the working group, both by providing expertise and organizational support.
The draft law was also subject to cross-sector coordination. Unfortunately, due to the lack of dissemination of information among the governmental sectors, which did not participate actively in the working group, some changes were made during the cross-sector coordination.
The CSOs members of the working group had their individual reaction and comments to the draft Law. Most of the proposed amendments by the CSOs were accepted by the Ministry of Justice and by the Parliament in the phase of discussion and enacting of the law.
The practice has also improved due to the progress towards implementation of the Government’s Strategy’s Action Plan in the following areas: adoption of the Law on Volunteering together with the bylaws necessary for its implementation; rules of Procedures of the Government have been changed, so that now the publishing of bylaws on ministry web sites is obligatory and any suggestions received should be taken into consideration, or an explanation provided if they are dismissed; the Citizen Charter is functional as a tool for easier access of the citizens to the services provided by the state administration.
Cooperation with the Parliament
The Office for cooperation between the NGOs and Parliament was established in 2004 with signing of Memorandum for Cooperation between the citizens’ association MOST and the Parliament of the Republic of Macedonia. The main goals of this office are: institutionalization of the cooperation among the civil society organizations and the Parliament; connecting of the citizens with the legislative bodies; providing relevant information and data needed for intensifying the dialogue between the Parliament and civil society organizations, including all channels for communication.
The functions of the Office are following: to provide services to the members of the Parliament and CSOs; to allow as much as possible information to the MPs for the state of civil society in the country, but also to provide the CSOs with information related to the activities of the MPs, especially those related to the legislation and enacting of the laws. The Office also serves as a meeting point for MPs and CSOs representatives. In the future the intention of the citizen association MOST who initiated and maintained this Office is to convince the Parliament that this kind of institutional cooperation is of great interest both for CSOs and the MPs and to give the opportunity to the Parliament in the future to carry out this Office as one of the permanent bodies in the frame of the Parliament.
Cooperation with political parties
The article 13 of the new Law on Associations and Foundations is very clear that civil society organizations cannot perform activities of a political party, i.e. they cannot provide direct or indirect financing of a specific political party and influence elections. In addition, the second paragraph of the same article explains that influence elections is considered participation of organizations in elections and election campaign for the benefit of a specific political party and direct or indirect financing of the election campaign of a political party. Having in mind this, most of the CSOs do not cooperate with political parties at all. But also, there are several institutes that are established by political parties. These organizations usually work with the youth’s committees of political parties as well as do researches for the purpose of the concrete political parties. For the rest of the CSOs, is difficult to have clear professional relations and cooperation with political parties and to stay independent from political parties influence in the polarized society as Macedonia is.