Europe’s postcard: Talk together

TIRANA, Dec. 9 – Albania is now on the eve of being accepted as a possible candidate status at the European Union.
It has been a NATO member since April.
But its democracy, and especially politics, needs further upgrading to meet European standards.
That is what one could easily understand from the words of the Swedish Foreign Minister, Carl Bildt, whose country also holds the EU presidency.
Bildt told Tirana Tuesday that politicians should sit down with each other to resolve their disagreement.
They should talk to agree on their disagreements, said Bildt.
That has been a usual postcard sent to the country for the New Year during its post-communist period.
Post-communist Albania is progressing well toward integration in the international institutions but it is lagging behind in its daily democratic life.
The country is engulfed in a political crisis since the June 28 parliamentary election.
The opposition is boycotting the new parliament, claiming one-third of the votes were counted badly or very badly, as the report of the international observers said. They want a recount of a certain number of ballot boxes.
The government declines to do that saying that would break the law as the Electoral College and other institutions had already given the final stamp to the election.
The series of protests has already started. The opposition says it will continue to the last moment with such democratic forms of political fight.
But, if violence noted in the previous post-communist years is excluded, that means that many draft laws asking for a three-fifth or 84 votes in the 140-seat parliament, desperately needed for the country’s efforts of integration into the EU, cannot pass.
The government does not accept the country is in a crisis. But Europe, US and OSCE are telling both sides to sit down and resolve this ‘disagreement.’ They call on the opposition to return to parliament to make the political debate, but also on the government to sit down and listen what the opposition is saying.
That will very likely not be enough for the domestic politicians to understand. That will very likely continue for more weeks or months to come.
Until there comes a moment when the government cannot do but accept dialogue. The ball is on her side as the opposition is making it clear they are determined to stay in boycott
But neither the governing Democratic Party of Prime Minister Sali Berisha nor the main opposition Socialist party leader Edi Rama accept what the other says. It is very common in Albania to go to the extreme but not accept to give in a little.
That means that it will again be the international community to poke the nose and grab the ears of the Albanian politicians and take them to the negotiating table.
The result will be good for both sides, though not what they hoped to achieve.
They have to get used to the European democratic standards of resolving disagreement at the table, warned Bildt.