Freedom House: Macedonia among ‘partly free’ countries
Macedonia is ranked as ‘partly free’ by the US-based non-governmental organization (NGO) Freedom House, which released Tuesday its report “Freedom in the World – Democracy in Crisis”.
In the report, Macedonia is singled out as ‘a country to watch’ in 2018 because ‘it may experience important developments in the coming year.’
“A democratically elected, ethnically inclusive government in Macedonia is seeking to root out corruption and other systemic abuses that grew worse under its scandal-plagued predecessor,” reads the report adding that the country could solve the name dispute with Greece, which has been hindering Macedonia’s path to EU integration.
Other countries in the region, ranked ‘partly free’ alongside Macedonia, include Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina with scores varying between 3 and 4 out of 7 points with seven designating ‘not free.’ Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia are ‘free’ according to the the US rights watchdog, whereas Turkey’s status has been reduced to ‘not free’.
The report covers 195 countries worldwide and a population of 7.4 billion inhabitants. Of those, 88 countries are described as free, 58 countries are partly free and 49 countries around the globe are considered not free