PROPOSAL OF RESOLUTION filed accordingly to art.47 of the regulations by the Hon. Marco PANNELLA and the Hon. Gianfranco DELL'ALBA, over the penal conviction of some ethnic Albanians teachers, related to the events of the University of Tetovo.

A. whereas the national structure of the Republic of Macedonia, according to the State's official statistics, is made up by 65% of Macedonian population and 22% of Albanian population, while the percentage of ethnic Albanians graduated or university students is meaningfully lower;

B. whereas after the splitting of Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, Albanians from Macedonia objectivly cannot pursue the university studies in their mother-tongue attending at the University of Kosovo - the bordering region subject to a state of police by the current Serb-Montenegrin federation -, and to that reason must be ascribed the above mentioned fall in the number of students;

C. whereas the Albanian population of the Republic of Macedonia, in the lack of perspectives into the sphere of education, started on June 1994 an initiative for the institution of an Albanian-language University in Tetovo, the largest among the Albanian-inhabited main cities of Macedonia, rendering a formal request to the government of the Republic of Macedonia on October 1994;

D. whereas the government of the Republic of Macedonia, on December 12, 1994, through a special resolution declared illegitimate and anticonstitutional that request, and then pursued penal and police actions against both peaceful demonstrations of citizens and the promoters of the demonstrations themselves;

E. whereas five ethnic-Albanian Macedonian citizens, among them the rector of the University Fadil Sulejmani, teachers Milaim Fejzi and Muslli Halimi, political representatives Arben Rusi and Nevzat Halili, have been arrested and convicted for the crimes of "incitement to disobedience", "participation to a mass demonstration preventing a public official in exercising his duties" and "obstruction to a public official", with condemns up to two years and half of jail;

F. whereas the penal trial in the Republic of Macedonia is still run as it was in former Yugoslavia, in a harsh contrast with the priciples and the spirit of its new republican Constitution - which ratifies the rights and freedoms of the person and the citizen, as well as the freedom of expression and public demonstration;

G. whereas already eight Albanian deputies of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia suspended their participation to the works of the Parliament as a sign of protest, and among the Albanian population of the Republic of Macedonia is growing the tension and the refusal of a social and public system felt as discriminative;

H. whereas the Albanian question in Macedonia is framed in the wider context of the ex-Yugoslavia's crisis, being a direct consequence of it, and the keeping of social peace in Macedonia is an essential condition in order to avoid a further increase of tensions and conflicts in an area already harshly troubled,

The European Parliament:

1. calls upon the EU's authorities to undertake any step in its powers at the authorities of the Republic of Macedonia in order to urge:

- the holding as soon as possible of the appeal trial to the defendants;

- the release of the defendants until that appeal trial;

- a careful consideration of the constitutional rights of the defendants;

- a revision of the policy the Macedonian government has pursued till now towards the question of university education in Albanian langauge, in compliance with the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia itself as well as the international conventions upon minorities' rights;

2. calls upon the Council and the Commission to urge the authorities of the Republic of Macedonia to undetake concrete measures in order to foster the ethnic appeasement in the Republic of Macedonia.

3. calls upon its President to convey this resolution to the Commission, the Council and the governments of the member states.