​On 11 September 2018, a delegation of members from the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) visited Skopje for the 15th meeting of the Joint Consultative Committee CoR – Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

The main topics of the meeting were the role of local and regional authorities in the country's path towards EU accession and fiscal decentralisation and local tax policy. In a fruitful exchange of experiences, locally-elected representatives from FYROM presented their concerns and views on how fiscal decentralisation should take place in the country which is one of the most centralised states in Europe.

Addressing the meeting, Cllr Tony Buchanan from the East Renfrewshire Council outlined how local tax is collected in Scotland as a country and at the local level. He stressed the importance of giving more capacity to local and regional authorities which represent the level of governance on which 70% of EU policies are implemented.

The next meeting of the JCC CoR-FYROM will take place in the spring of 2019 in Brussels.