Albania set to pass law recognising eight minorities

FUEN welcomes the new law that will boost the status and rights of minorities in Albania and will name two more recognised minorities. Albania is expected to adopt the new law that gives the minorities more rights in line with the best international standards mid-October.

The draft law was presented as a joint document of four ministries after a working group worked on it for almost three years. The document also follows a request from the European Commission, at a time when one of the five criteria that Albania needs to fulfil in order to start EU accession talks is "respect for human rights and protection of minorities".

Under the draft, Albania will officially recognise eight national minorities, instead of six, adding Bosnian and Egyptian minorities for the first time. The six other traditional minorities, Greeks, Macedonians, Vlachs, Roma, Serbs and Montenegrins, will remain.

For the first time, the draft law lays down the rights of minorities to use their language officially in interactions with the local authorities, if they make up 20 per cent of the local population and there is a real need for it. The new law also allows the eight minorities to name roads and administrative sites in their languages, alongside the Albanian names, when the minority makes up over 20 per cent of the local population. The draft also obliges the government to allocate extra funding in support of minorities and create official Committees for National Minorities.

FUEN member organisation Macedonian Association "Ilinden" welcomes the move and underlines that Albania is slowly starting to show a realistic picture of the minorities in Albania.