Skopje, 4 May 2023 (MIA) - A workshop focusing on the common foreign and security/defense policy was held on Thursday as part of a consultation process for creating the National Development Strategy, the Government said in a press release. 

"The need for such a strategic document, as the National Development Strategy, is an indicator of the serious approach the Government takes in tracing the country's development path in the next 20 years. Such an approach ensures broad consultation and reaching a comprehensive consensus among all stakeholders important for social development in tracing a vision of how the state should develop in the next two decades," Defense Minister Slavjanka Petrovska told Thursday's workshop. 

Representatives from different ministries, agencies, private companies, experts and non-government organizations attended the workshop. All of them contributed discussing various topics and offering solutions, i.e. activities to respond to the challenges the country would face in the future in relation to the security and defense policy. 

The workshop is an important step towards creating a safer and more secure future for the country, and is one of the rare examples of joint, interdisciplinary, supranational and suprapolitical joint action towards creating the National Development Strategy.

Also, the workshop is a big and important step towards creating a safer and more secure future for the country, and the wide range of participants from different areas guarantees that the National Development Strategy will be detailed and comprehensive, in order to protect the interests and security of the citizens of Republic of North Macedonia.

Today's debate is one of over thirty workshops in which, over the past period, about 3,000 participants discussed 23 topics of essential importance for the future development of the country. In this way, all stakeholders are involved through an inclusive process, with the aim of achieving a joint, interdisciplinary, supranational and suprapolitical creation of the National Development Strategy, which should outline the path for the development of the state in the next 20 years.