Tirana Times Editorial
TIRANA, March 23 – EU representatives tried to be as positive as they could in their latest mission to Albania. It was the typical formula Albanians have now been accustomed too – praise progress and urge for more changes. The positive words from Brussels even rekindled some hope that if Albania works fast and hard, it can be awarded with candidate status in time for the centenary celebrations in November. As much as we’d like to see that happen, it is an overoptimistic scenario.
The status is unlikely to come as a simple incentive. It will come after the homework is done or it doesn’t work. (One only needs to look at neighboring Macedonia to learn how a candidate country can make no further progress for years.)
Albania faces several problems at this point. With little public outcry over the true causes of the double failure by Albanian politicians to advance the country’s bid and the ongoing economic crisis in the EU, there will likely be less pressure both internally and externally to advancing the EU bid faster. With elections scheduled for 2013, there are also not a lot of incentives for Albanian politicians to advance the agenda. They will simply use the continued failure to blame the opponent as they have done in the past.
Meeting the 12 priorities EU has set to advance Albania’s membership bid is simply a matter of will. But advancing the bid, which in essence make bringing Albania into shape and EU standards, is also entangled in some heavy issues. The issues at stake: corruption, electoral reform and property restitution have been haunting Albanian for two decades. They are not easy to deal with. And it will take much more than a few months to tackle them.
The governing Democratic Party of Prime Minister Sali Berisha and main opposition Socialist Party of Edi Rama have it as priority to win elections – and while that doesn’t exclude their desire to join the European Union, it is also not necessarily a deal breaker for them if Albania makes no progress in its EU bid, based on what the country has experienced in the past three years.
That’s why in addition to the politicians, Brussels must also speak more forcefully to the Albanian people directly and perhaps less diplomatically than it has done in the past. If the fight against corruption remains a top priority, it should be spelled out what is and what isn’t working, and Albanian institutions should more forcefully be prodded to get their job done on this.
Everyone now seems on board with removing of immunity for public officials – judges, members of parliament, ministers and others. The issue has been contested and exploited for political gain long enough. The issue is not immunity itself, it is prosecution, good trials and convictions where they are deserved.
If in Croatia it took the arrest and trial of a fugitive former prime minister for Brussels to be convinced they were serious about fighting corruption, Albania has little to show at this point, other than the acquittal of a former deputy prime minister in a trial that more than anything helped the general Albanian public see the justice system with more distrust than before.
