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- ANGO DOOEL, which owns part of the yard by Parliament, is getting another 4,000 m² of state land in the centre of Shtip through a direct agreement.
- By completing the plot, the company now owns a total of 7,000 m², at a price of just 1,010 denars per m².
- A year ago, Shtip municipality changed its detailed urban plan and designated the new plot for a large supermarket; according to planning and administrative preparations, a Lidl store is to be built there.
- The Government granted ANGO the new property at a time when negotiations are under way in Parliament on compensation for the halted project by Parliament, through a law that has not yet been adopted.
- ANGO pays a fine of 5,000 euros every month for the unrealised project by Parliament.
ANGO DOOEL import-export Skopje, which owns part of the Parliament yard where a multi-storey car park was to be built, has expanded its property. At a session held last month, the Government agreed that the company would receive 4,000 square metres of state land in the centre of Shtip, allowing it to extend its ownership to an entire plot. The transfer was carried out through a direct agreement to complete a construction plot, after the decision was published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of North Macedonia, No. 61, of 20 March this year.
“This decision alienates construction land owned by the Republic of North Macedonia to the Company for Trade, Production and Services ANGO DOOEL import-export Skopje, by direct agreement to form a construction plot, as it owns more than 30% of the construction plot, for construction land owned by the Republic of North Macedonia with a total area of 3,953 m²,” the decision published in the Official Gazette reads.
The deal comes at a time when negotiations are under way in Parliament on compensating ANGO DOOEL for the land by Parliament, but there is no information on whether the Shtip deal is part of any plan to compensate ANGO for the halted construction of the car park.
To respond positively to ANGO’s request, the Government invoked Article 15, paragraph 4 of the Law on Construction Land, which describes the cases in which state property may be alienated by direct agreement – for building religious facilities, for building diplomatic and consular missions, and the third option, used in ANGO’s case: “to form a construction plot provided for by an urban plan or urban planning documentation if the person owns more than 30% of the construction plot”.
This is an attractive plot in the urban core of Shtip, which includes the land of the current bus station, about 3,000 square metres, already owned by ANGO.
Completing a construction plot – a legal scheme for usurping state land
Despite frequent declarations about fighting corruption, the authorities still show no intention of changing the disputed provisions of the Law on Construction Land, which allow private interests to obtain state property under the cover of “legality”. The key mechanism is called completing a construction plot – a procedure often used to alienate public space without a public call or a transparent procedure.
Under the law, any person who owns more than 30% of a construction plot can, by direct agreement, buy the remaining, usually state-owned, part of the land and thus become its 100% owner. In addition, this right also applies to owners of buildings or parts of buildings legalised under the Law on Illegally Constructed Buildings, which are registered in the Cadastre.
This provision – also known as the “30% – 70%” formula – has proved to be one of the most exploited legal mechanisms for turning valuable state land into private property, often at bargain prices, without public competition. As a result, the state loses a control mechanism and the public interest remains unprotected.
A series of controversial deals were carried out through this mechanism – from the buildings opposite the Holiday Inn hotel to the projects on the site of the former Treska factory. Such practices resulted in the mass construction of luxury buildings in places that previously had public space or facilities of importance to the community.
Although the public and some experts have long warned that such laws open a direct gateway to institutionalised corruption, the authorities still give no signal that they will change these regulations. The system keeps working – to the benefit of a small number of investors and to the detriment of the public interest.
With the government decision, the company’s ownership extends to the remaining fragmented properties next to the bus station, and it doubles its holdings, becoming the owner of a full 7,000 square metres. The price at which it buys the additional land is just 1,010 denars per square metre, meaning the extra 4,000 square metres cost the company only 65,000 euros.
As the Government told us, Shtip municipality had submitted information with a draft decision granting consent for the alienation of construction land by direct agreement, to form a construction plot provided for by an urban plan or urban planning documentation.
“If the person owns more than 30% of the construction plot – with the Company for Trade, Production and Services ANGO DOOEL import-export Skopje. The same information was submitted together with the complete documentation required by law. At the same time, the procedure for completing construction land owned by a private person is a right arising from the law, and the price per m² is set by law. In this case, the owner has a plot that they decided to complete,” the Government explains.
The ground for the business plan was prepared for more than a year
But expanding the ownership of the land, i.e. completing the plot, seems not to have been an end in itself, but only part of a more complex plan. This emerges from data published by the municipal council, which show that a Lidl supermarket is planned to be built on precisely this area – which increases the value of the location several times over.
The ground for implementing the business plan began to be prepared earlier – a year ago, when on 23 April 2024 the Council of Shtip Municipality adopted the Detailed Urban Plan for urban quarter CE Block 3 of the General Urban Plan for the City of Shtip, cadastral municipalities Shtip 1, Shtip 3 and Shtip 5, which includes ANGO’s current plot.
At that time, besides designating the site for building a bus station (E2.1), councillors voted to also designate it for large retail units (B2) – for building large supermarkets and shopping centres.
This brought ANGO a step closer to its goal, but since it did not own a large enough area to offer the land for building a supermarket, it started a procedure to extend its ownership to the entire plot.
When the Government decided in its favour in March this year, there were no more obstacles for ANGO. The company now has both the land and the building designation, after which the municipality began clearing the site. How much the contract with Lidl for building the store will be worth cannot be estimated, nor is it possible to calculate with mathematical precision how much profit ANGO will make.
Asked whether the Government was aware that a store of the German company Lidl is planned to be built on the land being alienated, and whether any assessment had been made of the cost-effectiveness of transferring this location into private ownership, the Government replied that “the Government has no competence to assess land that, after completion of the plot, is privately owned, nor to assess cost-effectiveness when it comes to private property”.
Samo Prasaj sent questions to Lidl, but received no reply.
The Mayor of Shtip, Ivan Jordanov, told us in a phone conversation that ANGO followed the same procedure as all other private companies. He does not believe the company received special treatment or that the local authorities were unusually accommodating to ANGO’s requests, even though the interests of the private company and the municipality coincided, given that the municipality could also have offered the German company state land to build its stores.
“Every private company has the right to submit an initiative to change the Detailed Urban Plan when it has an agreement with a private investor. In that case, the Council must decide. So far there have been about 50 such initiatives in Shtip municipality,” Jordanov tells Samo Prasaj.
As for the choice of location, Jordanov said it was Lidl’s decision. For the Mayor of Shtip, there is also nothing disputable in the procedure for completing the plot, which went through all stages – from submitting a study and an extract from the urban plan, to applying for approval, to obtaining consent from the Ministry of Transport and Communications.
According to the plan, the number of platforms at the bus station will be halved, and the remaining space will be used for the supermarket and car parking. No multi-storey car park is planned on this plot.
Compensation to ANGO for the car park is still being negotiated
Since 2013, ANGO has owned the land in the Parliament yard, which was later designated for a multi-storey car park, but construction never began. The case was largely forgotten by the public until last year, when the company parked an excavator in the Parliament yard, clearly demonstrating its readiness to start building. The message was received: after the Ministry of Interior decided not to allow a commercial multi-storey car park in the Parliament yard, the excavator was removed and the company agreed to negotiate.
The site by Parliament has stood neglected for months
The compensation has been under negotiation for months, but the Speaker’s Office has given no information on how far the procedure has progressed – or why the adoption of the law keeps being delayed. Two months ago, Speaker Gashi announced that the legal solution was 99% agreed and would be put before MPs by the end of February. April is now ending, and there is no trace of the law.
“The law that is to resolve this issue permanently is in its final phase, i.e. an expert analysis of it is currently being carried out. We would also like to inform you that the law does not refer directly to the car park, but to the creation of a security zone around Parliament, and as such it also covers the car park plot. We cannot give more details about the content of the law on creating a security zone around Parliament at this time. It is expected to be put into parliamentary procedure very soon, once the final consultations are completed,” Parliament said in its reply to Samo Prasaj.
Since ANGO owns the land by Parliament where it was to build the car park, and since its lawyer at the time its building permit was revoked was the current Minister of Interior, Panche Toshkovski, we asked whether Toshkovski attended the government session at which the decision allowing ANGO to buy state land was adopted. The Government replied that he did not.
Asked whether this might be some kind of compensation for the car park case, given that a working group has long been set up in Parliament to find a solution for compensation, the Government says that “in no case is this compensation, but a procedure in accordance with the law”.
The Government confirms that there is a working group within Parliament, with representatives of several ministries and Centar municipality, working to find a solution, but that the procedure is still ongoing; for more information on its progress, it referred us to the competent authorities.
And while the outcome of the negotiations in Parliament is awaited, ANGO pays a fine every month for missing the deadline to build the car park – 5,000 euros.
“The case related to the Contract for the sale of undeveloped construction land through public auction for building a multi-storey car park on a construction plot in the immediate vicinity of the Parliament of the Republic of North Macedonia, where the legal entity ANGO is the buyer and investor, is in the phase of collecting a contractual penalty for delays in meeting the obligations under the Contract.
The legal entity ANGO, which is both buyer and investor of the undeveloped construction land, is regularly charged and regularly pays a contractual penalty for the first year of delay in building the facility, in a monthly amount of 307,672.86 denars,” Centar municipality said.
In the absence of official information, we consulted professors about the possible outcome of the negotiations. Law Faculty professor Tina Przheska, who specialises in expropriation, says that “the right to property is a fundamental value of the constitutional order, enjoys legal protection and cannot be arbitrarily taken away by state authorities”.
“Under the Constitution, taking away or restricting someone’s property right is allowed only to fulfil a public interest established by law. In the legal system of North Macedonia, that law is the Law on Expropriation. The Constitution also stipulates that every person whose property right is taken away or restricted to fulfil a public interest is entitled to fair compensation, which may not be lower than the market value of the right. It is important to underline that the property right, as well as other property rights over real estate, are expropriated.
In an ideal expropriation, balance should be maintained. This means ensuring appropriate protection of individuals’ rights and interests without hindering the fulfilment of the public interest. Balance is achieved if those whose rights are expropriated are compensated, i.e. receive fair compensation, because their private interest is ‘sacrificed’ for the public interest. The competent authorities are obliged to ensure that the affected persons exercise their right to the fair compensation due for the expropriated rights (ownership and certain property rights). The law can be applied in a wide variety of cases to build facilities of public interest (infrastructure, energy, telecommunications, public services, education, health, etc.), as well as to take over existing buildings used for public-interest purposes,” says Przheska.
How much will compensating ANGO for the unbuilt car park cost?
The Law on Expropriation states that “compensation should not be below market value”. If the land has a building permit, as in this case for a car park, how is the valuation made, which body carries it out, and on what criteria?
“The market value of the property subject to expropriation is determined by an authorised valuer in accordance with the Law on Valuation, as well as by the Valuation Bureau. Authorised entities carry out the valuation according to established standards and methodologies, which means it may not be done arbitrarily or outside what the laws and bylaws prescribe. This method of valuing real estate was introduced to ensure that expropriation compensation is determined as fairly as possible. Besides compensation for the value of the property, the owner whose ownership is taken away is also entitled to compensation for investments (plantings, crops, produce, etc.), moving costs, damage suffered because of a change of location or interruption of business, and so on,” says Professor Przheska.
Compensation for partial expropriation is set at the amount by which the property’s value is reduced as a result of the restriction, compensation for the damage caused by the restriction, or compensation equal to the market rent for that type of property. This depends on what kind of restriction is imposed to fulfil the public interest.
The same applies to holders of certain property rights (long-term lease of construction land, right to use construction land, etc.).
But if the parties do not agree, who makes the final decision? Professor Przheska points out that expropriation is, in essence, a compulsory measure. So if the conditions of the Law on Expropriation are met – that is, there is a public interest that cannot be achieved in another way – expropriation is carried out.
“The owner, as well as the holder of a certain property right over the real estate, cannot prevent expropriation when the legal conditions allowing it are met. Expropriation is decided by the Property and Legal Affairs Administration, which issues an expropriation decision. That decision can be challenged in an administrative dispute before the Administrative Court,” she explains.
Asked whether the provisions of the Law on Expropriation should be applied to the car park by Parliament, Przheska says that since building multi-storey car parks is defined in the Law on Expropriation as a public interest of local importance, the law allows expropriation for the purpose of building car parks.
“The question of why building car parks was defined as a public interest for which expropriation is allowed is answered with the argument that it is in the public interest to solve the traffic chaos and the shortage of parking spaces in Skopje and in many other places. Opinions are divided on whether this is a strong enough argument, but regardless, the current Law on Expropriation allows it. Practice shows that owners are most often not satisfied with the compensation offered in the expropriation procedure and prefer to go to court to determine the compensation,” explains Professor Przheska.
The public is waiting for Parliament’s final word on the negotiations over compensation for ANGO, which are being held in secret. No institution is giving information on how ANGO will be compensated, how much, or whether the authorities’ generosity with the state land in Shtip will be taken into account when setting the compensation.
This content was produced by the Institute of Communication Studies.
Journalist: Sonja Petrushevska Popovska
Photos: Darko Andonovski
Related stories (in Macedonian)
With government support, the investor in the car park by Parliament enters compensation negotiations
Ministry of Interior refuses consent for car park by Parliament because it is a security risk
This article was translated from Macedonian using artificial intelligence (AI). The original Macedonian version is available here.
