Macedonia Parks Language Law to Focus on EU Priorities

Macedonia has delayed adoption of a new language law, sought by the ethnic Albanian community, but it will be back on parliament's agenda before the New Year holidays, said Artan Grubi, the chair of the parliamentary committee in charge of the law, after postponing a session of the committee, set for this week.

"This week is important for other reform issues, and I gave prefernece to them in order to prevent the public from losing focus on what is most important and urgent at this moment," said Grubi, a member of the ethnic Albanian junior ruling party in the Social Democrat-led coalition, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI.

The government bill, which has angered the main opposition VMRO DPMNE party, had been moving towards adoption. Parliament last week gave it a green light in the first reading, despite opposition from VMRO DPMNE.

Had the procedure continued as planned, the bill would have returned to a plenary session for its final reading, where it would have met more than 80 proposed amendments from the opposition.

The number of amendments would arguably have delayed a vote, detracting parliament from work on a tight EU-led agenda, mostly focused on the rule of law and judiciary reforms.

Macedonia is rushing to adopt a set of EU-sought reforms in order to get a positive recommendation from the European Commission in February and, hopefully - if it can reach a deal with Grece over its disputed name meanwhile - a start to long overdue EU accession talks.

The shift in parliament's agenda happened after Monday's visit of the EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn to Skopje.

During the visit, Hahn said the language law was not among the priorities that the EU would look at when considering a...