President Ivanov vetoes language bill

President Gjorge Ivanov in his address Wednesday said he would not sign into law the bill regulating the use of languages in Macedonia.

‘Instead of building a multiethnic society in the spirit of dialogue, coexistence via just and universally accepted laws we adopt unjust, repressive bill that favors only the Albanian language. Thus, considering my findings about the incompatibility of the bill on languages with the Constitution, as well as the viewpoints of the experts and broader public on the non-constitutionality of this bill and in line with the Article 75 of the Constitutions I’ve decided to not sign this bill on usage of languages into law,’ Ivanov said.

He considers that the bill introduces a very expensive parallelism in all state institutions, which leads to their full blockade and ineffectiveness, and under such conditions there is a threat for the issue of constructional redefining to be raised and for  Macedonia’s unitary character, sovereignty and territorial integrity to be jeopardized.

Ivanov said he send a letter to the Parliament about his decision to not sign the languages bill into law and called on the lawmakers to review his remarks with utmost attention.