Macedonia Shelves Controversial Youth Law

Youth groups staged a protest before the parliament

The youth groups complained that the law would have given parliament and municipalities too much control over youth organisation. They also criticised the government for not consulting them over the law.

The groups staged a protest in front of the parliament building on Sunday and urged legislators not to support it. This happened after parliament put the text up for discussion for this week.
  
Through its Facebook profile, the government of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said it was withdrawing the law in order to make “further consultations about its content with youth NGOs”.

The government adopted the draft this summer arguing it will boost youth activism.
 
But some youth NGOs feared its provisions would create “Communist-style” youth groups, more suited to the period before the 1990s, when Macedonia was part of the Yugoslavia.
 
The draft Law on Youth put parliament and municipalities in charge of deciding who will participate in future “youth councils” to be formed in each municipality. According to the draft, each municipality will form a youth council of people it has previously approved.

The draft also envisages formation of one youth council at a national level that would coordinate all the local youth bodies. Its members were supposed to vary in age from 21 to 29 and be approved by parliament.

The youth NGOs say that this would also be controlled by politicians.

The government would have had the right to propose 13 members, who would have been picked from the national Agency for Youth and Sports, from the National Agency for European Education and Mobility as well as from various ministries. The municipal youth councils would have nominated another 10 members, leaving only a few places for by non-governmental youth organisations.

The youth groups previously prepared amendments to the draft and submitted them to the authorities. Instead of a state controlled youth council, they proposed formation of a national umbrella youth organisation with participation from all youth groups.