Macedonian president to veto Albanian as official language?

Macedonian president to veto Albanian as official language?

This legal act introduces the Albanian language as the second official language in the country.

Assembly Speaker Talat Xhaferi, from the Albanian DUI party, thus carried out his plan and rejected a debate on amendments.

In question were almost 36,000 amendments submitted by the most influential opposition party, VMRO-DPMNE. The decision not to debate them almost led to a physical altercation between the former leader of that party and former PM Nikola Gruevski and Xhaferi, so security had to intervene.

The VMRO-DPMNE filed its amendments to the bill after it was adopted in parliament in January, and after President Gjorge Ivanov refused to sign it into law, instead returning it to the Assembly.

But Ivanov said on Thursday that he will not sign a decree on the implementation of the law.

However, under Article 75 of the Constitution, Ivanov is under obligation to sign the decree, because he has already exercised the veto power - but the deadline for doing so is not prescribed.