Sinisa Jakov MarusicSkopjeBIRNDecember 9, 2019
Commission’s suggestion – that North Macedonia's language law is too generous to ethnic minorities – has potential to cause discord between the main governing party and its ethnic Albanian allies.
North Macedonia’s government on Sunday reversed its pledge to take on board the advice of the Venice Commission – to take a fresh look at the country’s 2018 language law – after seemingly bowing to pressure from its ethnic Albanian coalition partners.
The ethnic Albanian parties at the weekend slated the Commission’s advice to the country to abandon some of the provisions on bilingualism.
“We will not be naïve and allow the opening up of some issues that could divide us,” Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said on Sunday, commenting on the report of the advisory body to the Council of Europe.
One day earlier, on Saturday, Zaev had reiterated that the government would honour the Commission’s recommendations.
Over the weekend, however, ethnic Albanian parties in North Macedonia, including the governing Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, took a different standpoint, warning against any revision.
Changing the language law would “practically bring us back to the times before 2001,” the DUI Vice-Prime Minister in charge of European issues, Bujar Osmani, warned.
He was referring to the times before the 2001 armed conflict between ethnic-Albanian rebels and the security forces, which ended that year with the signing of the Ohrid Peace Accord.
The peace deal saw the rebels disarm and their former leaders form the DUI. In exchange, the Albanian community, which makes up about a quarter of the population, obtained greater rights.
The language law adopted in March 2018 was seen as the last legal provision stemming from the Ohrid Accord.
But in its opinion on the Language Law, issued last Friday, the Commission said some of the provisions went too far and would be hard to implement. “The new law considerably extends the use of the Albanian language and in many respects goes beyond European standards,” it stated.
It added that in certain areas, in particular concerning the use of Albanian in court, the law “may go too far by imposing what may prove to be unrealistic legal obligations on public institutions,” coupled by heavy sanctions in case of non-compliance and the possibility of reversing judicial verdicts if there is the lack of translation and interpretation during the proceedings.
This “could significantly slow down the functioning of the entire judiciary, risking serious breaches of the right to a fair trial”, the Venice Commission warned.
It also said the law lacked clarity in terms of which provisions applied only to ethnic Albanians and which ones to other communities.
It recommended also that the obligation to use Albanian in internal and inter-institutional communications between civil servants be limited to written official communications, or the entry of the law into force be postponed until proper implementation of that provision was realistic.
The 2018 law was passed largely on the insistence of the DUI, which conditioned its presence in Zaev’s coalition government on its adoption.
After tough negotiations, the two main partners in government agreed to back the law, but also to immediately send it to the Venice Commission for an opinion, which they would later respect.
The law was adopted despite the strong disapproval of the then President Gjorge Ivanov, who vetoed it at one point, and the opposition right-wing VMRO DPMNE party. They both insisted that the law was unconstitutional.
The Venice Commission opinion arrived at a difficult for Zaev, ahead of early elections due next spring. His Social Democrats took power in mid-2017 advocating “one society for all” – but the party needs ethnic Albanian votes in the forthcoming early elections if it is to form another government.
North Macedonia’s government on Sunday reversed its pledge to take on board the advice of the Venice Commission – to take a fresh look at the country’s 2018 language law – after seemingly bowing to pressure from its ethnic Albanian coalition partners.
The ethnic Albanian parties at the weekend slated the Commission’s advice to the country to abandon some of the provisions on bilingualism.
“We will not be naïve and allow the opening up of some issues that could divide us,” Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said on Sunday, commenting on the report of the advisory body to the Council of Europe.
One day earlier, on Saturday, Zaev had reiterated that the government would honour the Commission’s recommendations.
Over the weekend, however, ethnic Albanian parties in North Macedonia, including the governing Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, took a different standpoint, warning against any revision.
Changing the language law would “practically bring us back to the times before 2001,” the DUI Vice-Prime Minister in charge of European issues, Bujar Osmani, warned.
He was referring to the times before the 2001 armed conflict between ethnic-Albanian rebels and the security forces, which ended that year with the signing of the Ohrid Peace Accord.
The peace deal saw the rebels disarm and their former leaders form the DUI. In exchange, the Albanian community, which makes up about a quarter of the population, obtained greater rights.
The language law adopted in March 2018 was seen as the last legal provision stemming from the Ohrid Accord.
But in its opinion on the Language Law, issued last Friday, the Commission said some of the provisions went too far and would be hard to implement. “The new law considerably extends the use of the Albanian language and in many respects goes beyond European standards,” it stated.
It added that in certain areas, in particular concerning the use of Albanian in court, the law “may go too far by imposing what may prove to be unrealistic legal obligations on public institutions,” coupled by heavy sanctions in case of non-compliance and the possibility of reversing judicial verdicts if there is the lack of translation and interpretation during the proceedings.
This “could significantly slow down the functioning of the entire judiciary, risking serious breaches of the right to a fair trial”, the Venice Commission warned.
It also said the law lacked clarity in terms of which provisions applied only to ethnic Albanians and which ones to other communities.
It recommended also that the obligation to use Albanian in internal and inter-institutional communications between civil servants be limited to written official communications, or the entry of the law into force be postponed until proper implementation of that provision was realistic.
The 2018 law was passed largely on the insistence of the DUI, which conditioned its presence in Zaev’s coalition government on its adoption.
After tough negotiations, the two main partners in government agreed to back the law, but also to immediately send it to the Venice Commission for an opinion, which they would later respect.
The law was adopted despite the strong disapproval of the then President Gjorge Ivanov, who vetoed it at one point, and the opposition right-wing VMRO DPMNE party. They both insisted that the law was unconstitutional.
The Venice Commission opinion arrived at a difficult for Zaev, ahead of early elections due next spring. His Social Democrats took power in mid-2017 advocating “one society for all” – but the party needs ethnic Albanian votes in the forthcoming early elections if it is to form another government.

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