These two days, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is being held in Paris. The most important point that is being considered is the election of Commissioner for Human Rights, said the VMRO-DPMNE deputy leader Aleksandar Nikoloski.
“Perhaps one of the most important institutions in Europe considering that it deals directly with human and minority rights which are under threat in many countries within the European continent. There are three candidates, one is Mrs. Kuneva from Bulgaria, the second is Mr. Novak from Austria and the third is Mr. O’Flaherty from Ireland. I asked the three of them the same question in order to decide which of these three candidates I would support, and that is the first thing they will do is protect the human and minority rights of the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria, in Greece, bearing in mind that the rights of these two minorities are seriously threatened. that is, Macedonians in Bulgaria and Greece cannot use their mother tongue in education, they do not have the right to associate themselves in citizens’ associations, nor in political parties, even less do they have the right to express themselves as Macedonians. I also asked the three of them what they will do to implement the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which refer to the Macedonians in Bulgaria, and which judgments are under the direct authority of the Commissioner for Human Rights in Europe. I asked them to commit to the implementation of judgments that are directly related to the rights of Macedonians in the area of self-identification, in the area of the right to association and in the area of the use of the mother tongue in the education process in Bulgaria. I think that this is something that we should work on together and I think that the future Commissioner for the protection of human rights in Europe should have this as a priority. I can say that I will continue to exert strong pressure on these three candidates until the election of one of them at the January session of the Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg in order to ensure that the rights of Macedonians in Bulgaria and Greece are protected in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights as well as The Charter for Minority Languages and the Charter for the Protection of National Minorities, which were actually adopted by the Council of Europe and supported by the European Union,” Nikoloski pointed out.
