The State Statistics Bureau director Apostol Simovski announced that the coming 2020 census will not be a typical census of residents, like the one held in 2002, but would be geared toward adding the migrants – citizens who left Macedonia and live abroad.

We will try to cover as many people living abroad as possible. Their data is exceptionally important for us, given that Macedonia, like other countries around us, is unfortunately a high emigration country, said Simovski.

The decision reflect a common political issue with the census in Macedonia, where the political weight of the ethnic Albanian community is constitutionally tied with it reaching the 20 percent mark of the total population. Ethnic Albanians in Macedonia have a higher birth rate compared to Macedonians, but also a higher emigration rate, and ever since the 2002 census doubts have been raised about the result putting the Albanian community at 25 percent. The issue became especially contentious during the failed 2011 census, when ethnic Albanian parties insisted that permanent and long term emigrants are tallied by Skype and introduced in the total count to bolster the percentage of Albanians. The census was called off mid work, after a joint position could not be reached.

As the Zoran Zaev Government faced the same issue, it was initially proposed that census workers don’t ask the residents about their ethnic background. Outcry followed after this proposal as lack of an official document declaring the number of ethnic Macedonians in the country would have compounded the erosion of Macedonian national identity initiated with the Prespa treaty with Greece. So, the Zaev Government is now accepting to add permanent emigrants, who may have even given up their Macedonian citizenship, into the census data.