Nalysis of Government Measures for Economic Support in the Covid-19 Pandemic Crisis: The Case of Northern Macedonia

Abstract

The beginning of 2020 brought a new and surprising direction for countries all over the world, especially for their economies. This is a result of the declaration of a state of emergency or civil emergency by governments to deal with pandemics caused by Covid19. As a result, governments passed decisions restricting the free movement of citizens and their rights, particularly disabling the right to work. These austerity measures attacked workers and businesses, resulting in large-scale layoffs, staggering unemployment, business closures, and so on. Restrictive measures that had the logic of preserving public health, but attacked the country's economy, forced governments to seek solutions to the consequences of this situation, especially measures to mitigate the negative effect on the country's economy. The paper aims to analyze the measures of economic support of the Government of the Republic of Northern Macedonia (RNM), which it has approved in several cycles to deal with the crisis caused by the state of emergency. Exactly how did these measures affect the mitigation of the negative effect on the country's economy, how effective and appropriate were they, and did they serve to mitigate the consequences of anti-covid measures? However, in the framework of this paper, we will not analyze the political effect of decisions about the protection of public health. Specifically, government economic packages for financial support of workers will be analyzed, which were conceived to mitigate the negative effects caused by the implementation of measures for the protection of harsh public health. Anti-Covid19 measures, with serious consequences on the business sector and the socio-economic status of citizens. The paper has its limitations in time and territory, so it focuses on the analysis of government measures as long as the state of emergency lasted. This paper will use descriptive, historical, analytical, comparative, and empirical methods (citizen surveys). The paper concludes the effect of economic measures in conditions of civil emergency and the level of their implementation in practice. As a result of the analysis of measures for economic support, it results that the government was late in implementing them in practice, while the same is considered insufficient to deal with the crisis. Delayed political decisions on economic measures, non-immediate inclusion of all categories in need of financial support, their delayed implementation, and the political effect of some decisions by the President and the Government in certain cases were not within the framework of socioeconomic support and public health. Finally, the paper brings as a novelty the conclusion that government measures in such cases should be used correctly without distorting them, respecting deadlines, and finding the right institutional path to their users.