In cooperation with the partners from the “ACTION SEE” regional NGO network, Metamorphosis Foundation for Internet and Society prepared the policy paper in which we analyze the level of transparency, openness, accountability of the parliaments in the Western Balkans region.

The openness of the Parliament of the Republic of North Macedonia has not improved significantly compared to 2018. It meets 63% of the openness indicators, which is 5% more than 2018 and 6% more than 2017. The trend of a slight improvement of the institutional openness in noted on a regional level as well, as in the last year the parliaments have improved the fulfillment of the openness indicators by 4%. Currently, the regional average of openness is 65%, thus the Parliament of the Republic of North Macedonia with its 63% of openness falls exactly within the regional average. This mild increase indicates that the Parliament has implemented an insignificant or minimal part of the recommendations of this survey made in the past two years. Indeed, it can be said that the adoption of the Code of Ethics for MP’s behavior in 2019 is the only indicator for active transparency that has driven the active openness of the Parliament in the last three years. However, despite the poor progress, the Parliament is in second place in regard to the openness of the institutions in North Macedonia immediately after the Government which meets 78% of the openness indicators. It seems that despite the several initiatives by the Parliament to engage in improving the transparency, functionality and credibility of the institution, the ongoing social context and the political crises affect these processes, such as the amendments to the Rules of Procedure, since for a longer period of time no consensus can be reached between the parliamentary parties for its amendment.

You can read the entire document on this link.