Strasbourg, 4 July 2022 (MIA) – Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) has made public Monday in Strasbourg its Fourth Evaluation Round Addendum to the Second Compliance Report on North Macedonia, which deals with corruption prevention in respect of members of parliament, judges and prosecutors. According to general conclusions, modest progress can be noted in the implementation of the recommendations addressed to North Macedonia in the Fourth Round Evaluation Report, MIA’s correspondent reports. Nine of the nineteen recommendations have been implemented satisfactory or dealt with in a satisfactory manner, nine recommendations have been partly implemented and one recommendation has not been implemented. More specifically, recommendations vi, vii, viii, ix, x, xi, xiii, xvii and xix have been implemented satisfactorily or dealt with in a satisfactory manner, recommendations i, iii, ii, iv, xii, xiv, xv, xvi and xviii have been partly implemented and recommendation v have not been implemented. According to the conclusions, “North Macedonia is making some progress to implement the recommendations contained in the Fourth Round Evaluation Report. GRECO notes that further reforms are underway in respect of a number of the pending recommendation. It encourages the country to pursue these efforts. Pursuant to Rule 31 revised, paragraph 9 of the Rules of Procedure, GRECO invites the Head of the delegation of North Macedonia to provide a report regarding the action taken to implement the pending recommendations (i.e. recommendations i, iii, ii, iv, v, xii, xiv, xv, xvi and xviii) by 31 March 2023. This report was adopted by GRECO at its 90th Plenary Meeting (Strasbourg, 21 – 25 March 2022). With respect to the judiciary, GRECO notes the extension of the range of sanctions applicable to judges by virtue of Article 78 (2) of the Law on Courts. Also, GRECO reiterates its concerns that earlier intentions to formally remove the Minister of Justice from the composition of the Judicial Council have still not materialised. As concerns prosecutors, GRECO welcomes the new Code of ethics, which represents a comprehensive set of integrity rules. Newly appointed “integrity officers” within the prosecution service are to provide advisory opinions regarding ethical dilemmas not covered by the code and to keep gift registers. Decisions of the Ethics Council, a supervisory body under the code, regarding ethical breaches now trigger disciplinary procedures against prosecutors concerned. While these are positive developments, hospitality remains to be covered and the internal rulebooks on gifts need to be revised to provide for identical thresholds on acceptable protocol gifts. Regarding MPs, a number of promising initiatives, such as the elaboration of the new Code of Ethics for MPs and of related new Guidelines, are underway. Overall, these represent a suitable framework for promoting the integrity and guiding the ethical behaviour of MPs e.g. with respect to conflicts of interest, engagement with lobbyists, gifts, etc. However, both documents would need further refinement and streamlining so as to render them more user-friendly, eliminate redundant content, ensure greater clarity and coherence and more clearly separate applicable rules from explanations and examples. Moreover, compliance and counselling mechanisms are yet to be designated. As concerns, the Assembly’s Committee on Procedure and Mandate Immunity Issues, responsible for the implementation of the currently effective code, it does not appear to have carried out any of its related functions yet. Finally, the statistics presented seem to demonstrate a more efficient implementation in practice of the system for reporting assets by all three professional groups. The number of administrative checks carried out by the State Commission for the Prevention of Corruption (SCPC) has augmented and these have resulted in identifying violations based on procedural grounds, i.e. failure to submit an asset declaration on time. However, an in-depth scrutiny of asset declarations of all MPs, judges and prosecutors has not been provided and information on the implementation of the system for reporting interests has been made available to GRECO only in respect of some MPs. Finally, GRECO invites the authorities of North Macedonia to authorise, as soon as possible, the publication of the report, to translate it into the national language and to make the translation public. In the Second Compliance Report adopted by GRECO at its 80th Plenary Meeting (22 June 2018) and made public on 9 August 2018, following authorisation by North Macedonia, it was concluded that North Macedonia had implemented satisfactorily or dealt with in a satisfactory manner six of the 19 recommendations contained in the Fourth Round Evaluation Report. In this light, GRECO concluded that the very low level of compliance was “globally unsatisfactory” in the meaning of Rule 31, paragraph 8.3 of the Rules of Procedure. GRECO therefore decided to apply Rule 32, paragraph 2(1) concerning members found not to be in compliance with the recommendations contained in the mutual evaluation report. In the Interim Compliance Report adopted by GRECO at its 85th Plenary Meeting (25 September 2020) and made public on 2 October 2020, following authorisation by North Macedonia, it was concluded that North Macedonia had implemented satisfactorily or dealt with in a satisfactory manner nine of the 19 recommendations contained in the Fourth Round Evaluation Report. Of the remaining recommendations, eight had been partly implemented and two had not been implemented. In view of these achievements, the level of compliance was no longer considered "globally unsatisfactory". GRECO therefore decided not to continue applying Rule 32 of its Rules of Procedure and asked the Head of the Delegation of North Macedonia to provide a report on the progress in implementing the pending recommendations (namely recommendations i-v, xii, xiv-xvi and xviii) by 30 September 2021. This report was received on the requested date and served as a basis for this Second Interim Compliance Report. GRECO selected Armenia and Denmark to appoint Rapporteurs for the compliance procedure. The Rapporteurs appointed were Ms Mariam Galstyan, on behalf of Armenia, and Mr. Anders Dyrvig Rechendorff, on behalf of Denmark. They were assisted by GRECO’s Secretariat in drawing up this Addendum to the Second Compliance Report.