SKOPJE: Macedonia’s parliament on Thursday passed a law allowing wider official use of the Albanian language, fiercely opposed by nationalists who say it will lead to further ethnic division of the Balkan country.
The law is key part of a coalition deal between the ruling Social Democrats and their junior coalition partners, parties representing ethnic Albanians who make up nearly a third of the 2 million population.
Sixty-nine deputies in the 120-seat parliament voted for the law that would allow, among other things, a parliament speaker to chair a session in Albanian.
Also from now on the citizens will be able to seek official documents such as birth and death certificate in Albanian throughout the country not only in municipalities with ethnic Albanian majority. The Albanian language is unrelated to the Slavic language spoken by the country’s majority.
“With today’s vote on the law on languages we finalized the normative part of the peace deal that ended the 2001 conflict,” Artan Grubi, a lawmaker from the ethnic Albanian DUI party, told journalists.
An insurgency among Macedonia’s large ethnic Albanian minority almost tore the country apart in 2001 before it was ended by an internationally brokered peace deal.
The ethnic Macedonian nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party, which ruled the country until 2016 parliamentary elections and which is now the biggest single party in the parliament, said in a statement that the law “deepens the differences and damages the homogeneity of Macedonian society.”
“The bilingualism will create chaos in the legal order, it will create inefficient institutions,” it said.
VMRO-DPMNR deputies did not attend the parliament session on Thursday in protest against the arrest of high ranking party officials over their role in a wiretapping scandal.
Macedonia was thrown into political turmoil in 2015 when opposition parties accused then-Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and his counter-intelligence chief of orchestrating the wiretapping of more than 20,000 people.
The crisis culminated last April when nationalists stormed the parliament building and assaulted Prime Minister Zoran Zaev in a protest against the election of an ethnic Albanian as parliament speaker.
Macedonia has made little progress toward EU and NATO membership due to a long-running dispute with Greece, which says Macedonia’s name represents a territorial claim to a Greek province with the same name.
Zaev has pledged to resolve the name issue and accelerate the country’s accession to NATO and the EU. (Reporting by Kole Casule; Writing by Ivana Sekularac)
Macedonia’s parliament approves law on wider use of Albanian language
Macedonia’s parliament approves law on wider use of Albanian language
Pull him off TV: Steve Bannon shuts down Sen. Lindsey Graham
- Trump’s former chief strategist called for the senator to be registered as a foreign agent
DUBAI: Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon called on Tuesday for US Senator Lindsey Graham to be registered as a foreign agent of the Israeli government, escalating a growing conservative backlash against the senator’s vocal support for Israel.
Speaking on his podcast “War Room,” Bannon said Graham should be “pulled off of television,” adding: "This is dangerous… because you have guys like Lindsey Graham and dozens more that are doing the wrong thing.”
In a Fox News interview on Monday, Graham said: “To all the antisemites, to all the isolationists… I’m not with you, I’m with Israel, I will be with Israel to our dying day.”
Graham also urged Gulf Arab states to join military action against Iran. “What I want you to do in the Middle East, to our friends in Saudi Arabia and other places, [is] step forward and say, ‘this is my fight too, I join America, I’m publicly involved in bringing this regime down,’” he said.
In a post on X, Graham questioned the value of a US defense agreement with Saudi Arabia following the evacuation of the American embassy in Riyadh, writing: “Why should America do a defense agreement with a country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that is unwilling to join a fight of mutual interest?”
Faisal Abbas, editor-in-chief of Arab News, responded to Graham’s comments in a Sky News interview, saying: “He flip flops so much, it’s actually entertaining.”
“On one hand, he says he will never set foot in Saudi Arabia. The next day, he’s here signing multimillion-dollar deals.”
“I don’t think anyone here takes him seriously,” Abbas added.
He warned Graham to be careful what he wished for: “Do you really want Saudi Arabia involved in this war putting our oil facilities at risk or do you want us stabilizing the energy markets?”
Graham pressed further, warning that inaction would carry a price. “Hopefully Gulf Cooperation Council countries will get more involved as this fight is in their backyard. If you are not willing to use your military now, when are you willing to use it?”
“Hopefully this changes soon. If not, consequences will follow.”
Graham's remarks drew sharp criticism from Bannon and others including podcast host Megyn Kelly.
She questioned on X whether Graham was overstepping his authority as a senator, writing: “When did Lindsay Graham become our president?”
Kelly also said Graham had threatened Lebanon, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, the wider Arab region, and Spain within a 24-hour period.
The problem with Graham “isn’t (just) that he’s a homicidal maniac, it’s that Trump likes and is listening to him,” she said in another post.
