On April 14, 2022, the Economic Forum “Blurred Look Ahead: Many Uncertainties Undermine Economic Outlook?” was organized by Finance Think, with the support of the Foundations Open Society and Civica Mobilitas.
Executive Director of the Foundation Open Society – Macedonia, Fani Karanfilova-Panovska, addressed the second panel of the Forum, emphasizing that the process of European integration and EU membership will improve our economic performance.
“We, as a small and open economy with limited resources, little structural potential, will be able to do much less on our own than if we were part of the Union,” she said.
Therefore, no matter when the negotiations start, in her address, she recommended that the reforms and institutions be set up as if the negotiations were taking place, which requires commitment and serious discipline from the administration.
At the end of her address, she stressed that in such a situation, when we have a “reset” of all systems and when civil society is generally in a phase of “reset”, it is necessary to rethink the ways we act, the topics and the capacities that we have, and civil society alone cannot do that.
“Civil society in the country for years has mainly depended on donor funds and therefore I would like to appeal that programs to support civil society organizations must be considered so that civil society organizations can respond to new priorities and challenges that are seriously different, both in terms of topics and approaches, from what we have done so far – while the traditional role of civil society organizations remains” concluded the Executive Director of the Foundation Open Society – Macedonia.
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19 April 2022