At a conference in Skopje, North Macedonia, national authorities and civil society representatives pledged to resolve all known cases of statelessness in South-Eastern Europe and prevent children from being born stateless. The conference was organised by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, the OSCE Mission to Skopje, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM), and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). Representatives from North Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia highlighted achievements in the region and identified actions needed to promote access to civil documentation, a fundamental human right for all.
Opening the event, the Foreign Minister of North Macedonia, Bujar Osmani, said: “Statelessness is a global phenomenon affecting millions of people, depriving them of their fundamental rights, access to essential services and above all dignity. Addressing statelessness is our common struggle and endeavour. Only by working together, with good faith and sincere efforts, can we fulfil our joint mission to eradicate this dilemma.”
Since the adoption of the Zagreb Declaration on Access to Civil Documentation and Registration in South-Eastern Europe in 2011, over six thousand stateless people have acquired a nationality or had it confirmed. With North Macedonia’s accession to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness in 2020, all countries in South-Eastern Europe are now party to both the 1954 and 1961 UN Conventions on Statelessness.
„We have seen significant strides, but we are not out of the woods just yet. Continued political will is necessary to fulfil the commitments made to prevent and resolve statelessness,” said UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Gillian Triggs.
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