Prime Minister Zoran Zaev in an interview with Koha newspaper said that the government will be committed to ensuring EU monitoring of high-profile corruption cases as soon as possible.

“We were the first country in the region to ask the EU to immediately launch an initiative to monitor high-profile cases of corruption. The European Commission supported the initiative and announced a quick start for this instrument,” Zaev underlined.

“We believe that this step will increase the responsibility of prosecutors and judges, strengthen the fight against corruption, and also increase the trust and confidence of citizens in their country and its institutions. The process to clean up the judiciary should be led by these institutions in cooperation with the legal experts, because only in this way, the trust in the courts and prosecutor’s offices will be restored and judiciary will be strengthened, which must finally deliver efficient and non-selective justice,” Zaev said.

He reiterated that the government is fully committed to necessary efficient and objective cleansing of the judiciary. The first vetting step has already been taken by entrusting the State Commission for Prevention of Corruption with the responsibility to verify the property status of both judges and public prosecutors.

Zaev also said that government, as in the previous term, will support the establishment of inquiry commissions or the initiation of international support and monitoring for certain cases that created interethnic mistrust and tensions.

“Moreover, we will also propose legal obligations under which the Public Prosecutor’s Office shall regularly and continuously inform the public on its work and progress in terms of cases. Only by transparent work we will deal with crime and corruption, as well as with the distrust that citizens have towards the state,” Zaev said in the interview.