When it was about 09:15, we were already ready after having our breakfast for taking our place at the Hotel Centar’s restaurant waiting for a visit from the Ministry of Environment. Mr. Saso Apostolov, Mr. Dejan Gadzovski and two of their colleagues arrived and apologized for being not able to host us at their office. Since they were moving from their current office to another, it was not possible for them to have us at the ministry.
Mr. Saso and his colleague Mr. Dejan mainly told about how they have been dealing with Spatial and Urban Planning in Macedonia. As they mentioned, spatial planning has a long history in Macedonia, especially after the Second World War, the main legal documents were focused on;
‐Law for Spatial and Urban Planning
‐Law for Implementation of Spatial and Urban Planning.
It was mentioned that responsibility for taking action is at the Ministry for Environment in relation to spatial plans. In 2004, a spatial plan was adopted for the period of 20 years. According to the plan, the spatial plan is to be implemented all for the Republic of Macedonia with two sub plans;

‐Spatial plan of a region
‐Spatial plan of an area of special interest
As for urban plans, there is a general urban plan that could be divided into two other sub plans such as;
‐detailed urban plan
‐urban plan for a village
There is also a plan available for areas outside a settlement (for areas that can be called neither a village nor a city).
Each year governmental meetings take place to discuss the budget. Spatial plan is a strategy for the future development of a certain region. For instance; there is a spatial plan for Ohrid (will be finished in spring), a spatial plan for Skopje Region. All these plans are being developed under the responsibility of the Ministry for Environment as a coordinating unit of activities in connection with the governmental ideas and Spatial Planning Agency.

Spatial Plans have two stages; first stage is the draft plan and second stage is the adoption of the plan. Decisions are taken by experts within the field; they are all involved in the discussions in the panel.
I was just going to ask Mr. Saso as how they were deciding on a certain region and according to which criteria; but he was quick and brought up the definition of a region. As he told, definition of a region was given by the law. On the contrary, he also mentioned that he has a different view of defining a region. According to Mr. Saso; territorial of the local government should be a region. He placed emphasize on the administrative area and stated the fact that it has its own identity.
A question was put forward in regards to ownership of the land. He said that local government does not have any ownership on the land. They are trying to get ownership from the central government.
Mr. Saso again pointed out that urban planning is the responsibility of the local government and obviously it has difficulties with financing the planning. My impression is that they have been working hard on developing the conditions in the city with regards to planning but due to the lack of financial sources, those plans cannot be carried out efficiently. In addition to the problems in financing, the demographic movement has happened to be the most challenging side of planning. As Mr. Saso mentioned immigration rates to Skopje city have been increased, eventually there has been housing problems in the city as well as environmental degradation has taken place. In relation to the environmental problems, legislative actions from the EU are put forward for required actions.

After the presentation, we took off from the hotel to the Municipality of Karpos. Ing‐Gerd, Merja and I walked together along the way and enjoyed the sunshine with the rest of the group during this short trip.
We arrived to the Municipality of Karpos around 11:05. Ms. Maja Lazarevska from the planning department welcomed us to a conference room at the municipality. She made a very clear presentation about the administrative structure of the local self governments which are represented by 84 municipalities with the City of Skopje (which is functioning as a unifying body) in Macedonia.
Ms. Maja continued her presentation by explaining the development strategies and plans. As she stated, in the Republic of Macedonia decentralization process has been running since 2005. Municipalities in this process have great part of competencies that belonged to the central Government before. Municipality of Karpos has the task of following master and detailed plans which are initiated and implemented by the City of Skopje.
By the end of her presentation, we had some refreshments already prepared for us at the municipality. Soon, we were informed that even a bus tour was organized to the outskirts of the Mountain Vodno in order to let us see the Monastery St. Panteleimon. A tour guide told us some general information concerning geopolitical position of Macedonia. When we reached the Monastery, he also told us the historical background of the St. Panteleimon Church which was built in 1164. It was not allowed to take pictures from the inside of the church. It was possible to see the Byzantine designs on the walls.

In the surrounding area of the church, there was a restaurant which had a very nice of the city. Borek and yogurt were served after the coffee which almost tasted like Turkish coffee. It was interesting to have the coffee at first but I did not mind since I realized how much I missed eating” borek”.

We were sitting under the sun and enjoying yummy borek (but Macedonians call it as “burek”) on the Mountain Vodno till 14:30 o’clock. Then we headed back to the city centre for our visit to the City of Skopje.
We met Mr. Vladimir Petrovski and Ms. Nada Peseva at the City of Skopje. The municipalities in the City are parts of the City of Skopje with defined peripheral boundaries clearly in law. According to the law, citizens are assured to participate in the democratic arena and have a say for some local actions. After a short presentation made at the City of Skopje, Merja and I talked to Ms. Nada and told her about our research topic. She was highly interested in our research questions and started thinking about how to help us. She said the most appropriate source of information could be found at the Ministry of Culture and promised us to arrange a meeting with some people from the protection office. We were so happy to hear that. We exchanged our contact information and headed back our hotel .

After resting a bit, we went out with the rest of the group to a Macedonian restaurant to have some local food.