Macedonia opposition leader Venco Filipche warns of deepening economic woes

Opposition party SDSM president Venco Filipche told a press conference that the current economic reality is the strongest refutation of Prime Minister Dimitar Kičevski’s narrative of Macedonia being a “third economy” in Europe. He said citizens are seeing empty refrigerators and cash registers, a clear sign that the claimed prosperity is fiction.

Filipche warned that the coming autumn months will be difficult, with uncertain electricity prices likely to trigger a further wave of price increases. He highlighted a decline in foreign investment, falling industrial production, and stagnating wages across average, minimum, health and education sectors, as well as stagnant social‑transfer payments. According to Filipche, the government's proposed budget rebalancing will not improve living standards and merely masks deeper problems with paper‑only figures.