BRUSSELS – There is a deep crisis of democracy in Macedonia, Nikola Gruevski and his party are trying to transform this democratic crisis into an inter-ethnic crisis, said Albanian Foreign Minister, Ditmir Bushati in an interview with Euractiv, Meta reports.
“There is no Tirana platform, there is a document that has been written by three out of four Albanian political parties that are present in the incumbent parliament in Macedonia which we have supported, because we see in this document a clear effort by Albanians first to keep Macedonia united, second to seek a better inter-ethnic harmony in the spirit of the Ohrid agreement, third to implement the Przino agreement, fourth to unblock Macedonia’s path toward NATO and the EU by normalising relations with Greece, with Bulgaria and of course with Albania and Kosovo as Macedonia neighbours”, said Bushati in the interview.
Regarding the claim that the most important element of the Tirana platform is to make Albanian an official language of Macedonia, which means changing the Constitution, Bushati says that does not mean the federalization of the country.
“I don’t know how this argument, having Albanian as an official language, is equal to the federalisation of the country. But if one refers to the Ohrid agreement and to the source of disputes between Macedonians and Albanians in Macedonia, it is clear that the implementation of commitments under this agreement has been rather low.There has also been a tendency by Gruevski and others to consider Albanians as seasonal workers in their own land. And there is no serious effort to ensure inter-ethnic harmony in the country. Over the last five to six years, the society has been more divided along ethnic lines. And I believe that by involving the so-called Albanian platform into the constitution, and into the new legal framework of the country, there will be more positive results for both ethnic groups living in Macedonia, or the main ethnic groups – Macedonians and Albanians”, said Bushati.