The EU Awards for Investigative Journalism for North Macedonia in 2021 were presented on 15 September at the Aleksandar Palace Hotel in Skopje.

First prize went to the young journalists of Radio MOF, Jasmina Jakimova, Bojan Sasevski, Daniel Evrosimoski and Emilija Petreska, for their investigative story, “Following the Balkan Lynx’s Footsteps – an Investigative Story in Two Sequels”. Second prize went to the team from Investigative Reporting Lab – Macedonia, for a series of investigations into the medical equipment business in the wake of the pandemic, “Pandemic profiteering – The Other Side of the Covid-19 Story”. The third prize went to “Only 44 people work, but 1,410 get paid”, an investigative series about the work of a government ministry, by Kristina Ozimec and Vlatko Stojanovski.

The EU awards have the overall goal of celebrating and promoting the outstanding achievements of investigative journalists from the Western Balkan countries and Turkey, as well as improving the visibility of quality investigative journalism in these countries. Stories published between 2018 and 2020 have been awarded prizes for investigative journalism through the “Strengthening Quality News and Independent Journalism in the Western Balkans and Turkey” EU-funded project in 2019, 2020, and 2021. The project covers the EU candidate and potential candidate countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey.