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Proffesional Civic Associations

The professional civic associations are formed on the basis of the Law for civic associations and foundations (LCAF) of the Republic of Macedonia to realize and protect their common professional interests. With the re-registration of the former professional associations according to the new LCAF, new relations have been created among the professional associations in Macedonia, as well as their regional and international linking. There are a few characteristics of these changes and they create diversity in the civic sector of our country.

By Mirko Spiroski

1.      Layering the professional associations

With the statement in article17 of LCAF that a civic association can be formed by at least five adult citizens who are citizens of the Republic of Macedonia, conditions were created for layering the professional associations. This layering is mostly realized according to the professional interests in certain specialties and sub-specialties so that of several professional associations with a relatively big number on a level of Macedonia, hundreds of professional associations were formed of a very small number of members. The second layering takes place on ethnical and regional basis, so that Macedonian, Albanian, Turkish and other professional associations with the same professional activities have been formed, and even regional associations have been formed in a part of them. These processes have given a chance to a part of the professional associations to affirm themselves, while the inert associations have lost themselves in the hierarchy of the big associations and have lost their identity, too.

2.      Legal and financial independence of the professional associations:

In accordance with article 6 of LCAF which states that the Civic Associations and Foundations are legal entities, there have been conditions for independence of the professional associations and somehow decreasing the dominance of certain persons and groups who dictated working conditions of various professional interests in a complex professional association.

3.      Regional and international linking of the professional associations:

The small professional associations have advantage in the regional and international linking (membership) because in the big and developed countries the professional associations are organized according to the sub-specialties and are very active. This linking enables the small professional associations to take an advantage of the developed countries in a form of accorded working rules, working protocols, projects, publishing works, exchange of information etc., thus getting closer to the international standards of work to a great extent.

4.      Weakening professional power of common taking actions:

The biggest disadvantage of layering the professional associations is the loss of power from common taking actions that is realizing common interests. There are a lot of examples for this, but the most important are: not realizing the right to work for additional and long-distance work, non-financing the associations by the state, not passing laws for certain professions and other modern forms of taking actions that cannot be realized mainly as a result of a lack of coordination among the small professional associations.

5.      Chaos in the professional meetings (congresses and symposiums):

All professional associations need professional meetings ((congresses or symposiums) that are held every two or four years. The great number of small professional associations has held many congresses and symposiums where the same people appear in different roles. Lack of schedule, lack of accordance between the terms of meetings, not having a wish for common meetings of a few related professional associations and other reasons have created a real chaos in holding symposiums and congresses of the professional associations in Macedonia. It is necessary to recheck the forms of organizing meetings of the professional associations in order to obtain quality and to save a large sum of money that can be directed towards other activities of the very same professional associations.