From 16th to 18th December 2018, a workshop for including CSOs in accession negotiations with the EU was held in the Radika Hotel in Mavrovo. The workshop was focused on Chapter 23 and it was attended by members of Network 23.
On the first day of the workshop (December 16, 2018), the EU negotiations institutional framework of the Republic of Macedonia was presented by Dragan Tilev, State Advisor in the Secretariat for European Affairs, Beti Jacheva, Director of the EU Directorate in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Bojana Bosilkova from the Department for EU in the Ministry of Justice.
On the second day of the workshop (December 17, 2018), the
draft-model for inclusion of civil society organizations in the EU accession negotiations was discussed, where Aleksandar Jovanoski from Helsinki Committee and Zoran Nechev from IDSCS presented and commented on the Draft-model for inclusion of CSOs in the negotiations, prepared by the Council for Cooperation and Development of the Civil Sector within the Government of the Republic of Macedonia. The workshop presented the experiences from the region with the negotiations in Chapter 23, that is, the experiences of Serbia and Montenegro, presented by Jovana Marovic, Politikon Network from Montenegro and Srdjan Majstorovic from the European Policy Center from Serbia. The last session of the second day of the workshop was dedicated to the options and proposals for improvement of the model of CSO involvement in the negotiations for Chapter 23, led by Malinka Ristevska-Jordanovska from the EPI.
The last day of the workshop (December 18, 2018) was dedicated to the past experiences and the current cooperation of the institutions with the civil society organizations in Chapter 23. The overview from the institutional perspective was presented by Kristina Koneska-Beroska from the Secretariat for European Affairs and Vladimir Delov from the Ministry of Justice. Aleksandar Nikolov from the Zenith Association presented the Rulebook of the Working Group 23, and Biljana Spasovska presented the findings of the Balkan Civil Society Development Network for IPA 3.
The aim of the workshop was to introduce members of Network 23 on the process of EU accession negotiations. The workshop also aimed to raise the capacities of civic organizations for engagement in the negotiation process, as well as in the discussion on the selection of an appropriate model of consultations / involvement of civil society organizations in the negotiations.
The workshop was organized within the Network 23: Networking for Impact (NETWIT 23) project, funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade (www.norway.no/en/serbia/) and the Balkan Trust for Democracy. The project is implemented by the Institute for European Policy - Skopje and the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in the Republic of Macedonia.