The Constitution and the Law on the Use of the Macedonian Language (1998) determine its official status and its use in the public sphere.
According the Ohrid Framework Agreement (2001), in the units of local self-government, where at least 20% of the population speak a language other than Macedonian, that language and its alphabet will be used as an official language, in addition to the Macedonian language and its Cyrillic alphabet (see also chapter 4.2.4).
Macedonian Radio Television as a Public Broadcasting Service fosters the use of the Macedonian language and the Cyrillic alphabet in radio and television programmes. The Second Channel of Macedonian Radio Television is completely open to programmes in the languages of the cultural communities, namely: Albanian, Turkish, Serbian, Romany, Vlach etc. (see also chapter 4.2.6).
In 2008, the Parliament passed the new Rules of Procedure and the new Law on the Use of the Albanian language. According to this document, starting from 2009, the Parliamentary committees can be conducted in the Albanian language as well.
In January 2018, after a long and burning public debate, the Parliament passed the new Law on the Use of Languages. The Law stipulates the use of the Albanian language at national and local level. However, this led to a recent political incident when the Parliamentary speaker Dzaferi gave his address in Albanian (his native language) during the Summit “European Parliament – Western Balkan” in Brussels in June 2021. Experts say he thus infringed the Constitution.
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