With the adoption of the Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Law on Concessions and Public-Private Partnership, legal changes have been introduced that significantly expand and modify the content of the existing Law on Concessions and Public-Private Partnership. The amendments and supplements were published in the “Official Gazette of the Republic of North Macedonia” No. 96/2026 dated 06.05.2026.
With the adoption of these amendments, the existence of institutional public-private partnership is envisaged. According to the legal provisions, “institutional public-private partnership” represents a form of cooperation between a public and a private partner. They jointly establish a commercial company, which is responsible for the implementation of the agreement for establishing a public-private partnership. A “private initiator” is considered to be any legal or natural person or consortium that submits a self-initiated proposal for establishing a public-private partnership.
When an institutional public-private partnership is established, the tender documentation determines in advance the form of the legal entity, the amount of capital, the ratio of obligations of the most favorable bidder and the public partner in relation to its establishment, as well as other relations arising from the establishment of the legal entity in accordance with the Law on Trade Companies.
The legal provisions also stipulate that a draft agreement is prepared within the tender documentation, in which the respective rights and obligations between the partners and the manner of their participation in the special purpose company are regulated in detail, particularly the level of public participation in the share capital of the project company and the expected amount of public financing or other types of public support.
In addition to the above-mentioned legal changes, this law also provides that preparatory activities for awarding a contract for establishing a public-private partnership may be carried out on the basis of a self-initiated proposal submitted by a private initiator in accordance with the law.
The procedure for awarding a contract for establishing a public-private partnership based on a self-initiated proposal is conducted in accordance with the provisions of the law.
The legislator has stipulated that the public notice for awarding a contract for establishing a public-private partnership and the tender documentation must explicitly state that the procedure is conducted on the basis of a self-initiated proposal.
With these adopted legal amendments, the legal framework is expanded and an opportunity is created to increase the number of public-private partnership procedures in the Republic of North Macedonia.