Constitutional Court publishes official verdict on continental shelf agreement with Greece

TIRANA, April 19 – The Constitutional Court published last week its official verdict rejecting a treaty that delineated the continental shelf with Greece in the Ionian Sea. The decision had been made public weeks earlier.
The court said it annulled an agreement with neighboring Greece marking out maritime borders and the continental shelf in the Ionian Sea.
The agreement was found unconstitutional “due to procedural and substantial violations.”
The court found that the agreement is in breach of four articles of the constitution, naming both procedural and substantive infractions.
The Albanian negotiating team that helped secure the treaty had not been vested by the president of the republic with the power to start negotiations.
The agreement was considered incomplete and in breach of both the Albanian constitution and the international conventions on water boundaries between the two countries, which would sanction the achievement of a fair and right solution.
The deal, signed by Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha and his Greek counterpart Costas Karamanlis in late April 2009 in Tirana created a stir of controversy in the local media. The Albanian government was accused of giving territorial waters to its southern neighbor.
Six Albanian parties, including the main opposition Socialists, had challenged the April 2009 agreement, accusing the governing Democrats of lack of transparency in negotiations with Athens.
The government has said they will respect the ruling.
Relations with Greece have been strained in the past, mostly over the treatment of Albanian immigrants in Greece and of an ethnic Greek minority in Albania.