Ethnic Albanian opposition party BESA announced that it is preparing a law to make identity cards in Macedonia bilingual. The cards currently are in Macedonian and English, but BESA demands that Albanian is also used in the document.

The demand is part of the agreement BESA had with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev when it conditioned its support for the amendments to rename Macedonia. BESA and the Alliance of Albanians, another opposition ethnic Albanian party, demanded that the word “Macedonian” is removed from the agreement with Greece which renamed Macedonia into North Macedonia. BESA eventually cut a deal under which the Preamble to the Constitution was amended to further erode the Macedonian national character of the Republic and Kosovo was named a neighboring country.

We in BESA are making all necessary preparations, including in the text of the law and the procedure. As soon as we have favorable conditions, we will implement this agreement we reached with the Government, said BESA member of Parliament Fadil Zendeli.

According to the Government, the focus now is on the Prespa agreement and the renaming of Macedonia, and this request will be left for later.