The Constitutional Court opens the case on Albanian street names in Tetovo

Macedonia

Express newspaper

05/03/2026 13:40

The Constitutional Court of North Macedonia has opened a case on the naming of streets in Tetovo, bringing back to attention a sensitive issue related to the use of the Albanian language in public spaces.

The initiative was presented by the League of Fighters from the National Liberation and Anti-Fascist War of Macedonia 1941–1945, which claims that the Tetovo Municipal Council in 2007 changed the names of several streets without obtaining the consent of the Government, in violation of the Law on Naming Streets, Squares, Bridges and Other Infrastructure Facilities, adopted in 2004.

According to the initiators, the Constitution and the law stipulate that street names must be written in the Macedonian language and in the Cyrillic alphabet. They oppose the use of names such as “Congress of Manastir” or “Martyrs of the Nation”, arguing that these names are in Albanian and, according to them, should be translated into Macedonian in order to have meaning in the official language of the state.

The issue of street naming in Tetovo has often been the subject of political debates and institutional clashes. The process of renaming streets, initiated during the 2021–2025 municipal administration term, was not completed and was interrupted shortly before the local elections. In January of this year, the working group dealing with this process was re-formed.

Meanwhile, this process does not include changing the names of schools and public institutions, although in 2022 a broader initiative was promoted by the Academic Association of Albanians for Art and Science and the Municipality of Tetovo, which aimed to change the names of streets, schools and public institutions.

Although some streets in Tetovo now have names in Albanian and are used by the Municipality when communicating with citizens, official documents continue to feature the old names left over from the former Yugoslavia period.

Similar initiatives for naming streets in Tetovo have been presented before, but so far none of them have managed to fully complete the process.