Macedonia Says Planned Register Won't Replace Census

Macedonia's new Social Democrat-led government this week tasked the Information Ministry with starting work on a register of the population.

However, this does not mean that the authorities are trying to avoid organizing a proper census, government spokesperson Mile Bosnjakovski explained.

"This tool will allow the conduct of electronic censuses, but that does not exclude a standard headcount. This is not going to supplant the need for a census, as the register has a completely different purpose," Bosnjakovski said.

Unlike in many other countries, where headcounts are mere statistical operations, in Macedonia censuses have long involved delicate ethnic issues.

They relate above all to the number of ethnic Albanians in the country and to their frequent demands for greater rights linked to that number.

Macedonia completed its last census in 2002, shortly after a short-lived armed conflict in 2001 with ethnic Albanian insurgents had ended in a peace deal.

The 2002 census showed that 64 per cent of the population was Macedonian and 25 per cent ethnic Albanian. Roma, Turks, Serbs and other minorities made up the rest.

Based on these numbers, Albanians were granted the right to use their language as the second official language in those areas where they made up more than 20 per cent of the population.

A subsequent attempt at another nationwide headcount in 2011 ended in fiasco.

It was scrapped shortly after it began due to ethnic disputes. The main problem was whether the count should exclude people who had been absent from the country for over a year, which Albanians said was a way to reduce their numbers in the census.

Ethnic Albanians, who have left the country to work abroad in...