In an interview with Republika, professor Katica Kulafkova says that the finding of the Venice Commission opens the door to abolish the law on the use of the Albanian language. The Commission found that key portions of the law violate the Macedonian Constitution, or are unworkable.

Adopting the law was a key condition for the ethnic Albanian parties to support the creation of the Zoran Zaev Government. Despite the refusal of President Gjorge Ivanov to sign it, the law is being implemented with Zaev, including the provisions that mandate the use of the Albanian language in municipalities with no Albanians, full bilingualism in the public administration and soon to come bilingual currency, uniforms and other state symbols.

This law creates an unjust position for the Macedonians and Macedonian speaking citizens, mandating the use and the learning of the language of an ethnic minority, the Albanian minority, through fines, inspections, state agencies, institutional conditioning. The law has already introduced a level of confusion and complicated our relations, led to misunderstandings and violation of the use of the Macedonian language across the administration. This will make the country less functional and will enhance parallel structures and leads to a linguistic federalization, which is more dangerous than a territorial one, said professor Kulafkova.

The law introduces fines for public sector institutions and even employees who do not use the Albanian language in official communication across the country. President Ivanov pointed that this is in violation to the Constitution which limits the use of minority languages to municipalities where there is actual need for that – where the minority amounts to at least 20 percent of the population. According to the Venice Commission, the law deals serious blows to the functioning of the public sector and the judiciary.

Professor Kulafkova points to the need to have a lingua franca that would bind the country together through its official use.

No army, police, security service, healthcare, judiciary can operate efficiently without a common state, national language mandatory for all, such as the Macedonian language. This is an unnatural situation, that all nations object when they are stripped of their rights, only the Macedonians remain quiet. EU should apply the same standards for Macedonia as it does to Estonia, for example, or other member states. The Macedonian public is concerned by the regional imposition of Albanian iconography, Kulafkova told Republika in her interview.