North Macedonia - February 2024

On 28 February, the Parliament of North Macedonia passed amendments that will allow the government to run advertisements in private media using public resources. The amendments were submitted to parliament in November 2023 in an expedited process, typically utilized for crucial, EU-sought reforms. State advertisements in private media were outlawed in 2018. North Macedonia’s Journalists’ Association and the Independent Union of Journalists and Media Workers have criticized the amendments, voicing concerns about risks to political influence on the media, increased dependency of the media on politics, and disruption of the media market. In 2019, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network had disclosed that the government led by Nikola Gruevski, who is currently a fugitive following a jail sentence for corruption, had funnelled approximately EUR 26 million over seven years into predominantly private media in order obtain favourable coverage.

Sources: Balkan Insight, MKD.mk, Nova Makedonija, Deutsche Welle