Macedonia

Switzerland has been supporting Macedonia since 1992, both through bilateral cooperation and contributions to international programmes. From 1996 to 2008, Macedonia was one of the priority countries Swiss cooperation with Eastern Europe and the CIS. Since 2009, the SDC has been conducting a special programme in Macedonia. In 2000, the first SDC/SECO country programme made Switzerland’s involvement in Macedonia more coherent and gave it a long-term planning structure. The Swiss cooperation programme in Macedonia for 2005-2008 underwent a peer review in April 2008, and strategic policy for the period after 2008 was reformulated on the basis of this review. The new Cooperation Strategy with Macedonia for 2009–2012 will focus on two areas: 1) constitutional state/democracy and 2) water/environment. The Cooperation Strategy with Macedonia (2009–2012) will be published in mid-2009, so the information on this page is already based on the new cooperation framework.

The implementation of the programme subscribes to the country's ongoing decentralisation process. In line with the 2001 Ohrid Framework Agreement, which put an end to a violent conflict over the rights of the Albanian minority, this process was to help balance the interests of the various communities. Back in 2001, the international community played a key role in facilitating this Agreement which halted the military crisis and provided a foundation for the Government’s political agenda (especially with regard to minority rights and the decentralization process). Macedonia has been an official candidate for EU membership since the end of 2005. The report published by the EU in October 2009 recommends that formal EU-accession negotiations be launched with Macedonia, but they have been on hold due to the issue of the country’s name which is still a subject of controversy with Greece. In the same way, Macedonia’s pending accession to NATO is also contingent on the resolution of the same dispute. Since 2010, Macedonian citizens have been exempted from the visa requirement for short-term stays in the Schengen area.