The Securities and Exchange Commission of the Republic of North Macedonia announced it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in capital markets with regulators from Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria, becoming the only non-EU regulator participating in the initiative. The memorandum is intended to strengthen supervisory cooperation through the exchange of experience, harmonisation of regulatory practices and coordination of activities aimed at improving the efficiency, transparency and competitiveness of regional capital markets. The signatories also plan joint initiatives to support more integrated, liquid and resilient markets and to help identify regulatory gaps; the Commission’s president Bujaré Abazi and commissioner Vasko Peikov also participated in a panel on initiatives to increase small investor participation. The agreement is positioned as a regulatory-level extension of a regional capital markets cooperation effort that began with stock exchange and finance minister memoranda signed in 2024 and 2025, supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.