Macedonia ‘Patriotic’ Receipts Unconstitutional

The mandatory so-called “patriotic receipts” which separately show the amount consumers spend on locally-produced products are unconstitutional, Macedonia’s Constitutional Court has ruled.

The Court annulled parts of the rulebook of the Finance Ministry that in June obliged retailers to acquire additional software for these receipts or face a penalty of up to €5,000.

The Ministry has so far been silent. “We can not comment until we receive the decision officially,” the spokesman Martin Martinovski told local media on Wednesday.

But experts say the state would now have to refund the money to more than 55,000 shopkeepers for the additional costs they incurred. The upgrade of the software cost each retailer from €50 to €200, media reported.

“If the government does not return the money by itself, the shopkeepers have grounds to sue the Ministry,” the professor of constitutional law at Skopje University, Borce Davitkovski told Thursday’s local Dnevnik daily.

The newspaper came out with an unofficial estimate of around €5.5 million that the government would have to pay.

The measure enforced by the Government since July was pushed as a way of raising awareness among customers and increasing demand for local products. But retailers argued that the upgrades are absurd and will not serve the cause. They took the government before the Constitutional court.

Some experts then warned that the measure also contradicted international agreements on free trade and open market that the country has signed.

Source: Balkan Insight

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Posted by editor on Dec 18 2008. Filed under Invest-Inform, Politics, Region. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry