ROUNDTABLE - TAX POLICY, INFORMAL ECONOMY AND CORRUPTION IN THE WESTERN BALKAN COUNTRIES

4/30/2015
Today in the hotel "Arka" in Skopje, a roundtable on tax policy, informal economy and corruption in the Western Balkan countries was held organized by the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia (CCM), the Confederation of Free Trade Unions (KSS) and the Union of Independent and Autonomous Trade Unions of Macedonia (UNASM) within the frameworks of the project ,,Tax policy, informal economy and corruption in the Western Balkan countries", which is implemented by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Pan-European Regional Council (PERC) and the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), on which the Report on tax policy and informal economy in the Western Balkan countries was presented as a result of the two year implementation of the project.

Caption 1: The President of CCM, PhD Mitrevski on the roundtable

This project represents an opportunity to share experiences with the countries from the region and to learn more on the measures and actions taken by governments in the fight against the informal economy and corruption as well as the involvement of trade unions with this regard.

Caption 2: Participants on the round table

On this roundtable the Report on tax and budget policies in the EU and the Western Balkan countries was presented by the EU expert on tax policy, Martin Hutsebaut; Biljana Chklamovska from the Union of Independent and Autonomous Trade Unions of Macedonia (UNASM), presented the situation in the informal economy in R. Macedonia, the representative of the Association for Democratic Initiatives, Monica Veljanoska presented the Assessment corruption report in Macedonia- 2014 and the representative of the MLSP, Mladen Frchkovski presented the measures taken by the Government to reduce the informal economy.

On the round table his address had the President of CCM, PhD Zhivko Mitrevski, who stressed the need for raising of this issue on a higher level and the need for a comprehensive joint action of all social partners in the country including the trade unions to channel and include this economy in the overall formal economic activities of the state.

At the end of this roundtable what was concluded was that trade unions will continue to work together to mitigate and reduce the informal economy in the Republic Macedonia.