Albania has Recognized the Bulgarian Minority in the Country

The Bulgarian minority was officially recognized by Albania, local media reported.

This was after the amendments to the Minority Protection Bill, approved by consensus in the country's parliamentary legal committee.

The official position of Tirana until recently was that the Bulgarians living in Albania for centuries have no special status. The European Parliament has called for the ethnicity of the Bulgarians living in Prespa, Golo Bardo and Gora to be recognized, estimated at some 50,000 people, BTV said. They have remained since the time Albania was part of the medieval Bulgarian state. Before Communism came to Bulgaria, Sofia was taking care of its compatriots, but then they were forgotten.
 
In September, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov told his Albanian counterpart, Eddie Rama, that he expects the new law to contain texts that would protect the rights of the Bulgarian minority in the country. For its part, Rama has committed that Albania will not harm the interests of the Bulgarians. The minorities now recognized in Albania will become 9: Greek, Macedonian, Wallachian, Montenegrin, Serb, Roma, Egyptian, Bosnian and Bulgarian.