Skopje; MPs Adopt Anti-Discrimination Law

Despite calls from the EU representatives in the country and from the country’s human rights associations to include this type of discrimination in the new law in order to meet EU standards, the centre right VMRO DPMNE legislators on Thursday voted in favor of the law without the amendments related to sexual orientation.

The opposition left the plenary session in protest before the voting took place.

“We will not take part in passing an anti-European law and the government version of the anti-discrimination law is such a law,” Vesna Bendevska, an MP from the largest opposition party, the Social Democrats, told media.

For the ruling party, MP Silvana Boneva noted that the law will still provide protection for homosexuals and for  other marginalized sexual communities despite the fact that these groups are not explicitly mentioned.

The adoption of the law yesterday comes in the wake of a wider public debate over the past few months following the decision of the VMRO DPMNE led government to exclude this type of discrimination from the draft law even though it was included in earlier versions.

Several ambassadors of EU countries,as well as the EU representative to Macedonia, Ambassador Erwan Fouere, urged on several occasions for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation to be included in the law.