Greece and North Macedonia held a tabletop exercise in Skopje on Thursday aimed at strengthening cooperation against economic and cross-border crime.
The exercise, titled "Mutual Judicial Assistance in Economic Crime Cases," was organised on the initiative of the Greek Embassy in North Macedonia, working with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Mission to Skopje.
The aim was to promote practical cooperation between the relevant institutions of the two countries through the exchange of experience, information and best practices for handling such cases.
Who took part
The exercise was coordinated by Stylianos Bios, president of first instance judges, who served as a seconded national expert at Eurojust, the European Union's judicial cooperation agency, from February 2022 to January 2024. Senior officials from North Macedonia's finance and justice ministries and other bodies involved in combating economic crime also took part.
Opening remarks were given by Edward Anderson, head of the Police Criminal Justice and Reform Unit at the OSCE Mission; Alexandar Janev, director of the Public Security Office at North Macedonia's Ministry of Internal Affairs; and Christina Vasilatou, chargée d'affaires at the Greek embassy.
Bilateral ties and EU alignment
Vasilatou said Greece and North Macedonia are neighbours and allies that cooperate both bilaterally and through international organisations. She said the exercise launches a new series of actions the Greek embassy will support in the coming months, aimed at achieving concrete and tangible results.
She also said that Greece, as a neighbouring European Union member state, supports North Macedonia's alignment with the EU's body of laws, known as the acquis communautaire. She described the bilateral cooperation as a bridge for building communication channels between the institutions of the two countries.
What comes next
The initiative forms part of an agreement signed in May 2026 between the Greek embassy and the OSCE Mission in Skopje to launch a joint project aimed at more effectively tackling economic cross-border crime.
