Denationalisation in Macedonia

BUMPING ON HISTORICAL COBBLES

Macedonian authorities are trying to fulfil one of their most significant election promises, but it is evident that the process of denationalisation is not an easy job, especially for poor countries

AIM Skopje, 16 April, 1998

Only a few months before the announced autumn elections the current Macedonian government undertook bringing to an end the task which it proclaimed as one of the priorities four years ago, i.e. in the beginning of its present mandatory period. It is the question of the pretentiously announced "correction of historical injustice", in other words the question of returning the property taken away from Macedonian citizens by the infernal package of ideological laws implemented during the phase when the forthcoming dictatorship of the proletariat practised here its beginners' steps and acquiring material support for its later takeoff. The Macedonian government has finally, God knows whether due to pressure of the domestic public or foreign financial institutions, presented the latest version of the Denationalisation Law, the draft of which has entered the parliamentary procedure. Judging by the structure of the parliament, there are great expectations that this Law could be adopted, although its critics, mostly neutral experts and successors of failed expectations point out to a serious incompatibility with the Constitution and stress that they believe that justice could be achieved only by arbitration in the either domestic or international courts.

No matter what the legal correction of ideological roughness may be like, the document with the ambition to do so met with violent reactions of Macedonian public. As soon as it was published the relevant minister Taki Fiti emphasised the will of the current government to put an end to all the misunderstandings related to nationalised property as well as the fact that this would be done according to the potentials available in Macedonia at this moment. Since this is happening in the delicated period directly before the elections, such a formulation brought up the question of authenticity of the government motivation. Even a superficial reader of the national Constitution can notice that return of forcibly confiscated property cannot depend on good will of a regime, no matter how benevolent and humane it may be, but it is the result of the very essence of the constitutional document which defines Macedonia as a civil state in which private property is sacred. Selection of "details" which are exempt from the process of return of property, are caused, according to the Government spokesman, by the current shortage of financial means, it directs the deprived to the conclusion that the new Law is not completely free of ideology and that political criteria overcame the legal ones again. This is where the cynical remark "Law of (no) return" comes from.

If the Law of denationalisation comes into force, the owners or heirs of industrial facilities which are not numerous because Macedonia could not have been called an industrially powerful country before the Second World War, would also be "deprived" of their property. This legal document was preceded by the process of privatisation and previous owners can now be only small stockholders in companies which were cheaply "sold" to manager teams. According to the Law, the property which was given as a gift to the society in the process of nationalisation or taken away from the war profiteers cannot be returned either. On this occasion legal experts and unlucky heirs can only remind of voluntarism (this is intentionally an euphemism) applied in determination of categories of "volunteers" and "war profiteers" at the time. At the same time the Government has decided to exclude completely from denationalisation the most valuable previously nationalised property, meant for constructing public buildings on, and to regulate subsequently this matter by some other Law (about constructing sites). As expected, the property which belonged to religious communities, which is considered extremely big and very expensive will not be returned on this occasion either.

The temperature in public was raised the most by the legal solution related to return of nationalised apartments. This is the smallest part of the "inventory" included in the Law, the experts estimate that this it amounts to only about five per cent of the total "State debt" but it is at the same time the most attractive. Apartment are here, as well as in other places, cash money and it is not surprising that the owners and heirs are most eager to have them return quickly. Unfortunately the Law prescribes only the return of apartments which are vacant, which can be considered as extremely cynical regarding the circumstances. An apartment inhabited by "holders of tenancy rights" will not be returned, "just compensation" will be paid for it. It should be noted that in this way the Government is reviving the category of "holders of tenancy rights" which does not exist at all in Macedonian legal regulations, since the total housing inventory must be privatised. The state will pay compensation, in instalments of course, to the real owners for the inflicted damage during the twenty coming years but only up to the sum of 100,000 German marks. The trouble is that since the mentioned apartments are also the most expensive ones and are in expensive villas and on the most attractive sites, the real owners would have immediately got five times more money, but in this way they only have hopes that their children would get rightful compensation. There is also the question whether currency rates at annual inflation of three per cent for German mark can guarantee that the promised sum would be paid in total.

This is the state of the legal solution, although there were some proposals not to include this part of the "debt" into the Law on nationalisation. One of the most persistent lobbyists for excluding the apartments from the Law was Asen Grupce, eminent legal expert, former president of the Macedonian Constitution Court. But it turned out that mister Grupce himself lives in an enormous nationalised flat which belongs to someone else. This inspired the deprived owners to suspect the Government for controversial decision-making under pressure of a few influential "meritorious" citizens who use someone else's property possessing at the same time their own houses and purchased apartments elsewhere. We are again at the level of ideology. Led by this hypothesis, some journalists went too far in their attempt to "discover" privileged tenants, and disgraced some respectable citizens, but he whole story showed the other side of the problem. There are people who have lived for years in nationalised apartments, some of them were even born there, they have regular tenancy papers, paid their rents regularly and have invested considerable money to improve their homes in "old fashioned" houses according to modern standards of living. Now they are deprived of their rights since they cannot make use of the right to purchase "their own" apartments and permanently legalise their own status.

The size of absurdity is best illustrated by the fact that two parallel societies of citizens with very similar names but contradictory interests and opposed ambitions exist in Macedonia. Both "The Society for protecting owners of deprived property" and "The Society of tenancy owners", are equally concerned about the result of the parliamentary discussion about the controversial law which started in the past few days. They both claim that they would seek justice even outside this country, at relevant European courts. It is evident that historical injustices cannot be corrected without causing others. Some neutral parties suggest that the whole business be postponed until Macedonia becomes rich enough to pay all the debts, instead of passing solutions which would be more restrictive than those which caused all the problems. The question is when could this be, and should this state allow further postponement of one of the basic laws which conditions future social transformation processes and international support which was promised for the mentioned processes.

AIM Skopje

BUDO VUKOBRAT