Ethnic Community Flags to Be Raised in 19 Municipalities in Macedonia

09/06/2005

Macedonia's government has set out to implement one of the final provisions of the Ohrid Agreement by drafting legislation on the use of ethnic symbols. Under the proposed law, minority communities in 19 municipalities would be allowed to use the flags and symbols of their choice.

By Marija Lazarova for Southeast European Times in Skopje – 09/06/05

Under the legislation, Macedonia's ethnic communities will be enabled to use the flags and symbols of their choice in municipalities where they number more than 50 per cent of the population. [AFP]

As part of its bid to complete implementation of the Ohrid Agreement, the Macedonian government has put forward draft legislation on the usage of ethnic communities' symbols. The bill would enable 19 municipalities with a predominantly minority population to raise ethnic community flags alongside the Macedonian state flag. Sixteen of the municipalities would raise an ethnic Albanian flag, two an ethnic Turkish flag, and one a Roma flag.

The United States, the EU and the OSCE have welcomed the agreement on the usage of ethnic symbols.

"The government had consultations with us, the signatories of the Framework Agreement, on different aspects of the draft bill," EU Special Representative for Macedonia Michael Sahlin and the US Embassy said in a joint statement. "We can notice that the text fully respects and preserves the integrity of the state flag through defining the official usage of the community symbols."

The OSCE chairman-in-office, Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, said the organisation hopes that the parliamentary debate will be led in the spirit of wide political co-operation and dialogue.

Under the legislation, minority ethnic symbols would be raised only in those municipalities where the respective minority communities number more than 50 per cent of the population. Only the state flag would be raised outside parliament and other government buildings.

Macedonia's Albanian political parties have not reached a consensus on what symbol should be used. The Democratic Union for Integration, a member of the ruling coalition, advocates the traditional Albanian black double-headed eagle. But other parties -- the Democratic Party for Prosperity and Democratic Party of Albanians -- want their own flags to be used in municipalities where they represent at least 20 per cent of the population.