February 2006

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LAW ON LANGUAGES, A KEY ISSUE IN MACEDONIA

February 2006 – The law on languages in Macedonia has not yet been passed despite being on the political agenda for a long time. According to several political analysts, Macedonia’s ruling Social Democrats are seeking to delay the adoption of a new law on the use of the Albanian language, out of fears that it could bring about their defeat in the country’s next elections.

Approximately 700,000 Albanians are living in Macedonia. They are the second largest population group in the country, after the Slavs-Macedonians. Before Macedonia became part of Yugoslavia in 1944, western Macedonia –where most of the Albanians live- was part of Albania.

The language act is one of the issues of concern in the report issued this month by the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER), an organisation dedicated to preventing ethnic conflict in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the former Soviet Union. The report shows the results of the “Mavrovo Process”, a series of roundtables that have provided the Macedonian political elite with the only venue apart from the parliament where all political parties can meet and discuss the most pressing issues and concerns of the day. The process began in 2003 as a way to improve communication over the implementation of the Ohrid Framework Agreement, whose signing in 2001 put an end to the conflict in the country and resulted in a package of constitutional amendments designed to boost the rights of the country’s large Albanian minority.

According to the PER report, representatives of opposition parties taking part in the Mavrovo Process focused on two main issues in their criticism of the government’s policies: judicial reform and the law on languages. As regards the latter, a leader of an ethnic Albanian opposition party asserted that the absence of a new law on languages demonstrates that the Ohrid Framework Agreement is not being implemented. However, the Macedonian parties in power have declared that no extra concessions will be made beyond those foreseen at Ohrid, which concern use of Albanian in local government alone. Use of the Albanian language is currently regulated by nine separate laws. Its role in the education system, for instance, is governed by the Laws on Primary, Secondary and Higher Education, and its use at municipality-level is regulated by the Law on Local Government.

The government tried to adopt a new law on languages last June that did not satisfy the junior partners in government, the Albanian Democratic Union for Integration, which have been proposing to establish Albanian as an official language throughout Macedonia. Among other things the report summarizes the different political positions on the issue and stresses on the fact that it has not yet been solved.