Finance Minister Fatmir Besimi held a meeting on Friday with EU Ambassador to North Macedonia David Geer during which they discussed that North Macedonia is set to receive next week EUR 80 million out of the total EUR 160 million in macro financial assistance provided by the EU, to mitigate the effects of the corona crisis.

The EU, the Ministry of Finance said in a press release, will provide additional EUR 40 million, set to cover new zero-interest credit lines and support grants for small and medium-sized enterprises and the unemployed.

Minister Besimi, the press release read, underlined at the meeting North Macedonia’s aspirations to join the EU and readiness to implement reforms in order to achieve this goal.

“We’re committed to achieving EU integration by implementing key reforms. Efficient public finance management is one of the preconditions for EU accession and we’re focused on creating a system that will allow strategic, long-term budget planning and evaluating results through success indicators. We’re especially focused on implementing structural reforms to improve competitiveness and creating new jobs, another precondition for improving economic management,” Minister Besimi said.

He wished the Ambassador a successful term in office and thanked his team for the support they’ve offered North Macedonia in implementing European values in order to join the big European family.

Moreover, the Minister expressed hopes that support will intensify once accession talks kick off, the press release read.