Zoran Zaev defended the controversial concept of counting the emigrants from Macedonia among the actual residents of the country in the on-going census. The move is designed to inflate the Albanian share of the population, but according to Zaev, it is important because the emigrants might at some point decide to return to Macedonia and therefore should be counted in the statistics.

Our diaspora could literally return home tomorrow. If they want to. They are our citizens, they have Macedonian passports and identity cards and if they have lived for years outside of the country, it doesn’t mean that they will remain outside forever. Theoretically they may return tomorrow, Zaev said.

Macedonia is a heavy emigrant country – a process that shows no sign of reversing – and much of the ethnic Macedonian diaspora simply ignores the census angry at Zaev’s policies, while the Albanian diaspora has organized massive campaigns to count every person who is still a Macedonian citizen. The 2011 census was interrupted because of the same practice.