The leader of the opposition and largest Albanian party in North Macedonia, the “Democratic Union for Integration” (DUI), Ali Ahmadi tonight called on the country’s Constitutional Court to reject all appeals filed with it challenging the law that governs the use of the Albanian language in the country.

The Constitutional Court will meet the day after tomorrow Wednesday (11/12) to consider the 13 total appeals that have been submitted to it against the law. These appeals have been filed mostly by Slavic right-wing and nationalist parties and organizations, including the VMRO-DPMNE party of North Macedonian Prime Minister Christian Mickoski.

“On December 11, we ask the Constitutional Court, if it is really a Constitutional Court that delivers justice, if it is a court that cares for democracy in the country, for peace and stability and not a court that adds fuel to the fire, to reject the 13 appeals, to leave us alone and go to our homes”, said Ali Ahmeti, speaking to supporters of his party, who from last night started demonstrations, with all-day and all-night rallies in “defense” – as he called them – of the law, in front of the Constitutional Court building in Skopje, and are expected to last at least until Wednesday.

“Keep your hands off the (Albanian) language law, because otherwise there will be no peace in the country,” added Ahmeti.

He also mentioned that the current president of the country’s Constitutional Court became a member of the Court at the suggestion of the country’s former president, Giorgi Ivanov (from VMRO-DPMNE), who had refused to sign the presidential decree to put into force the law on the use of the Albanian language.

This law, which was passed in 2019 by the previous center-left government of North Macedonia with then prime minister Zoran Zaev, provides, among other things, that at all levels of central authority and in the wider public and judicial sector, the official language of of the country is “Macedonian” (as it is mentioned in the country’s Constitution) as well as the language spoken by more than 20% of the country’s states (Albanian language). Based on the last census conducted in North Macedonia in 2021, Albanians make up 24.3% of the country’s population.

Mickoski accused the Albanian DUI of inciting international tensions because, he claims, the party is no longer in power and can no longer “hijack the state, as it has done for the past 20 years.” The DUI participated in all the governments of the country from 2002 until June of this year (with the exception of the two years 2006-2008).

Christian Mickoski, after the great victory of his party in the last parliamentary elections held in the country last May, chose as his partner in the government the Albanian coalition called “Axizia”, ​​which had come second in the elections, among the Albanian factions of North Macedonia, after the coalition “European

Front’ led by DUI. Mickoski’s choice provoked and continues to provoke strong reactions from Ali Ahmeti’s party, which accuses Mickoski of “trampling” the will of the majority of Albanian voters in North Macedonia.

Also, 250 Albanian intellectuals in North Macedonia, including the rectors of the three Albanian-speaking state universities in the country, in an open letter, called on the Constitutional Court “not to play political games” and not to “tamper” with the law on the Albanian language language, while two Albanian judges of this Court will boycott its session tomorrow and will not attend to her.

However, comments on this law have also been made by the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s advisory body on matters of constitutional law and the rule of law, which considered that some aspects of this law, mainly with regard to its use in the judicial system of of North Macedonia “exceed the European standards set by the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages”. The observations of the Venice Commission mainly concern the implementation of “bilingualism” mainly in the judicial system, which in this way, as the Commission points out, will become dysfunctional. However, so far, the law is not implemented in the judicial system of North Macedonia, due to a lack of resources and sufficient human resources.

The international tension raised in North Macedonia ahead of tomorrow’s session of the Constitutional Court follows the incidents that took place about ten days ago, with the burning of the North Macedonian flag by Albanians near the center of Skopje. The next day, people of Slavic origin burned, probably in retaliation, the Albanian flag in the city of Prilep and set Albanian cars on fire in the city of Kumanovo.

Despite the fact that the tension in international relations in North Macedonia has eased in recent years, they remain fragile. In 2001, armed Albanians of the KLA were involved in months-long clashes with the government forces of the then Macedonian government, which almost led to the dismemberment of the country. Those conflicts came to an end in August 2001 with the signing of the Ohrid Peace Accords, which gave the country’s Albanian population rights they had been demanding since the country’s independence in 1991.

Ali Ahmeti was the political commander of the UCK and after the Ohrid agreement he proceeded to establish the DUI party.