Albania will now have 8 national minorities, what is changing

Albania will now have 8 national minorities, what is changing
By Eglantina Nasi

Starting from today, Albania will have eight national minorities: Greeks, Macedonians, Aromanians, Roma-Egyptians, Montenegrins, Bosnians, Serbs, Bulgarians. This is a new reality for our country, following parliament’s voting of the new bill on “The protection of national minorities”, which has prompted different reactions in the region. Let us recall the statement issued by the Bulgarian Foreign Minister, Ekaterina Zaharieva, who, after saying that this act was achieved following so many efforts, she went even further by thanking “the Bulgarian community for this, because 3000 signatures were collected in a matter of days”. “In a democratic state, it’s important to allow people’s self-identification”, Zaharieva said, thus supporting article 5 of the law, which legitimizes the right of self identification. “Every person is entitled to declare whether he belongs to a national minority based on the right for self-identification…”, the law states. In other words, every person who lives in Albania, is now entitled to declare if he belongs to a given national minority.

But, the most difficult part is for institutions to verify this, in order not to have fictitious figures on minorities. The Bulgarian side goes even further claiming that its minority in Albania should have been recognized a while ago. “Albania recognized the Bulgarian ethnic community 104 years later”, the Bulgarian Prime Minister, Bojko Borisov has commented on this. On the other hand, even high representatives of the Greek state have issued comments on the new law concerning national minorities in Albania.  “Rather than safeguarding the rights of minorities in the country, based on European standards, the law on protection of minorities passed by the Albanian Parliament perpetuates the arbitrariness of the Hoxha regime.

It is a step forward for existing and non-existent minorities and a step backward for the existing main minority of Albania”, said the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alexandros Yennimatas , who was asked by journalists on this issue.  Meanwhile, the Greek President, Prokopis Pavlopoulos has said that “with the recent behaviors manifested by Tirana and Pristina, which are a brutal violation of human rights and with everything we have seen happening with the minorities or their right of property ownership, Albania is in fact hurting the process of accession and she is the only one responsible for this”. Nonetheless, we will not remain inactive in front of such behavior. We owe it to Greece and Europe”, he added.

Aromanians: We should not be referred as “Vlachs”, Bulgarians have never been a minority

 The naming “Vlach-Aromanian” should be changed to “Aromanian”, because “Vlach” is not a scientific term, but a local referral of the origin and in all of the contemporary terminology, this minority is referred to as “Aromanian”. This has been the main claim made by representatives of the national Aromanian minority made during the discussions of the new bill in parliament. Meanwhile, representatives of this community have told Albanian Free Press that the claim of the Bulgarian minority to be referred with such term, has emerged in the recent years. “Up until now, they have not been part of the Committee of Minorities”, they have said.

Ethno-linguistic minorities will be national minorities

Some of them have been considered up until now as “ethno-linguistic” minorities, but with the new law in force, they have obtained the status of national minorities. This has been one of the main novelties of the new law on “The protection of national minorities”, which has introduced a new reality in the country. “The law no longer makes any divisions or distinctions between national minorities and ethno-linguistic minorities, which, de facto, is considered as a division which is accepted by the Albanian state and this appears in official documents and information. Based on the recommendations of the Advisory Committee of the Framework Convention, the law no longer stipulates such distinction, adjusting national minorities based on the criteria set out by the law”, the document drafted by MPs in relation to this new legal situation concerning minorities in Albania, states.

The language and symbols of the minority if it exceeds 20% of an area

 “In municipalities where people belonging to national minorities make up for 20% of the total number of population, then the use of the minority’s language is sanctioned between people who belong to these minorities and the institutions”. This is another interesting article of this law, which describes the basic criteria for the use of the minority language, adding that in such municipalities, following a decision by local councils and a request filed by an adequate number, the names of the administrative units, streets and other topographical signs will also appear in the language of the minority. But, during the parliamentary debates, MPs demanded for this percentage to be 50%.

 

 

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