From 14 to 18 September an expert mission is working in Skopje under the European TAIEX instrument. The guests are from Greece - representatives of the Greek ministry of finance and national economy and of their Single Payment Authority.

The task is specific: to set out the concept and the timetable for a new Law on the public sector pay system.

Why a new law is needed at all

Because at the moment there is not one system, but dozens. Different institutions calculate points and allowances according to their own rulebooks. That means two comparable posts in two different institutions can carry completely different salaries, and nobody has the full picture of how much the state pays out in total and on what basis.

The Greek Single Payment Authority works as a central mechanism through which payments for all public sector employees are processed. The system allows data from employee registers to be cross-referenced with tax databases, and that data is used to run fiscal policy.

This is not only our idea

It is worth saying out loud: harmonisation is not merely an internal need. It is a condition from the reform package the European Commission set for access to funds from the Growth Plan.

In other words - money depends on this.

The deadlines

The ministry is already working on the new legal framework. The plan is for the legislation to be completed by the end of 2026, with gradual implementation starting in 2027.

The mission opened with addresses by public administration minister Goran Minchev and the acting ambassador of Greece in Skopje, Christina Vasilatou.

"Reforms of this scale are not carried out overnight. They require patience, persistence and cooperation", Vasilatou said, judging that the reform should contribute to greater institutional resilience, better fiscal management and more trust in public administration.

"Equal pay for equal work" - the sentence everyone knows

The stated goal is to establish clear and equal rules for all institutions, with that principle actually applied.

The principle is as old as the problem. The problem is that every public sector pay reform has its losers - people whose salary under the new rules will be lower than it is now, or will stop growing at the same pace. Not a single document so far says what happens to them.

That is the test. Not whether a law is passed by the end of 2026 - that is doable. But whether the new system holds the first time it has to say "no" to an institution that has spent years getting comfortable with its own rulebooks.

This is not the first engagement of Greek teams through TAIEX in Skopje. The two countries have previously cooperated on environmental control and inspection oversight. The difference is that this time the expertise goes straight into the treasury.