Osmani: Law on Languages shall Not be Changed

The Deputy PM for European Affairs Bujar Osmani stated on Tuesday that the government will respect the recommendations of the Venice Commission in relation to the Law on Languages by creating and establishing capacities in the areas pointed out by the Commission. “The Venice Commission clearly states that the bilingualism in the judiciary should not cause problems because of the insufficient capacities at the moment. Because of this, we shall create action plans for improvement of these capacities so that the bilingualism is more efficiently implemented and causes no problems. I believe the positions of DUI and SDSM are very similar upon this matter; PM Zaev and Deputy PM Sekerinska also confirmed there will be no changes made to the matter of the language. The Law on Languages, just like the agreements we reached with Greece and Bulgaria, is an irreversible process, and documents which cannot undergo any further changes. Only thing left for us is to establish capacities for their full and proper implementation,” Osmani said during the promotion of the “European Corpse of Solidarity” at the Secretariat for European Affairs. The PM Zaev stated for the media on Tuesday evening that there are no disagreements over the Law on Languages within the ruling alliance. “All decisions related to sending the law text to the Venice Commissions were made with consensus, and were reached as a result of cooperation of officials from my office, the Secretariat for European Affairs, the Justice Ministry and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the next days we shall hold meetings in order to find a solution for the implementation of the law, together, including all relevant parties,” Zaev said. DUI MP Artan Grubi on the other hand claims that DUI was not informed that the entire law text was sent to Venice. “We only agreed to send the segments from Article 8 related to the banknotes, the army uniforms and the securities. The Venice Commission gave recommendations, not criticism, and we need to implement those recommendations by strengthening the capacities of state institutions. I find it absurd to discuss at all the usage of the Albanian language, a right that was given to us by God,” Grubi said.