At the meeting held in the Parliament, the amendments to the Law on Urban Greenery received the support of the representatives of the Interparliamentary group for the protection of the environment and the fight against pollution and climate change. The draft amendments to the law were presented by the expert team from the project "More greenery for a resilient Skopje", which is implemented by the Green Institute, CED Florozon and the Macedonian Women's Lobby, in cooperation with the City of Skopje, the Faculty of Forestry Sciences, Landscape Architecture and eco-engineering, and financially supported by the Government of Sweden through the sub-branch scheme of the project "Civil Organizations in Action for Climate Change"

The members of the Inter-parliamentary group were introduced to the reasons and needs for the amendments to the Law on Urban Greenery, adopted in 2018, through which compliance with the Law on Urban Planning, the Law on Building, and the Law on Violations will be enabled.

Namely, the proposed amendments require the following:

• harmonization of urban plans and planning-project documentation according to the current Law on Urban Planning from 2020;
• harmonizing the classes of uses of greenery and green infrastructure according to the valid Urban Planning Rulebook of 2020 and defining the categories of urban greenery according to the walking distance from the home and the available area;
• increasing the standards for greenery in m2/inhabitant at the city level and the minimum percentage of a construction plot in accordance with the new European trends for green infrastructure and the fight against climate change;
• determining the minimum percentage of greenery on a building plot according to the class of purposes;
• specifying the way of maintaining the greenery;
• establishing an obligation to hire experts (forestry engineers, landscape architects) in planning, designing, erecting, maintaining and protecting greenery;
• amendments to the penal provisions in order to comply with the Law on Offenses from 2019 and strengthened sanctioning of institutions that did not comply with the legal provisions for minimum greenery, did not adopt strategic documents for greenery, did not prepare a green cadastre, issued building permits without a minimum percentage of greenery, destroyed greenery etc.;
• refinement of the Regulation on urban greenery in accordance with the legal amendments.
• In the coming period, there will be a public discussion through which the proposed changes will be communicated to a wider range of subjects from different profiles in order to bring about consensual solutions for complying with the existing legislation on urban greenery.