TIRANA, April 28 – Albania has surprisingly found itself in the midst of the UK’s Brexit debate in the past few days being used by the Remain camp to illustrate what misfortune would happen to the UK in case they leave and used again by the Exit campaign to illustrate a potential relation UK could have with the EU as an outsider. It all started when leading anti-EU campaigner Michael Gove, also the UK Justice Minister, said Britain could team up with Albania, Serbia, Bosnia and Ukraine in a free–trade zone outside the EU.
The suggestion that Britain might replace Brussels with Tirana as its European partner drew widespread condemnation and ridicule and was seen as a major gaffe on Gove’s part. The main attractions for Leave supporters were outlined in Business for Britain’s 1,000 page research document called “Change or Go” . The Financial Times reported that the EU’s former trade commissioner Karl De Gucht said any Brexit comparisons with Albania was “ridiculous nonsense” . He went on to say, “Albania is a poor country, a small economy, underdeveloped. It is like comparing a little nut with a big watermelon.” Albanian Prime Edi Rama described efforts to drag Albania into the battle for Brexit as absurd “I cannot believe it can be in Britain’s interest to look for a model in Albania or to emulate the current status of AlbanianEuropean relations.
We are not ourselves interested in the status quo. Why would anyone in Britain be?,” he wrote in the The Times. “The Albanian-EU relationship is not a model for Britain to emulate. Take it from us, we live here. I am convinced that Britain staying in the EU will be good for Albania and good for Europe,” added Rama. The Remain campaign have backed the views of the Prime Minister, using Albania as a negative example of a country outside of the EU. A journalist from the UK’s Daily Mail visited Albania ironically portraying the Brexit from the perspective of donkey trader in Tirana rural areas, telling the UK not to leave the block in its next June referendum.
The newspaper described Albania as a country where almost half of the population live below the poverty line of $5 a day and accounting for only 0.1 percent of European trade. Albanians often make it to the headlines in British media for smuggling into the UK. In another interview with Sky News Rama said The Leave campaign’s warning that staying in the EU could leave the UK open to millions of economic migrants is “nonsense. The UK’s skies will not be “blackened by Albanian eagles” if Albania and other non-EU members join the bloc, prime minister Edi Rama told Sky News Tonight.
Albania’s Integration Minister Klajda Gjosha said Albania believes in the European project. “A united Europe is safer and Albania believes in the European project. Albanians will be added value to the EU. We want a tougher Albania within a tougher Europe,” she said addressing the London Diplomatic Academy this week. Albania is hoping to launch accession negotiations with the EU after becoming a candidate country in mid-2014 but has been urged to adopt a justice reform and tackle corruption before talks start.
As Britain heads to a referendum on June 23, Vote Leave campaigners say the UK government will pay Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey a total of £1.2bn between 2014 and 2020 as part of the EU fund to help these countries to join the EU. They say that the UK will pay Turkey a further £640m “as part of the recent EUTurkey deal designed to facilitate Turkish accession to the EU” , bringing the total to £1.84bn. Prime Minister David Cameron wants Britain to stay in the EU, now he has got some powers back from it. Sixteen members of his cabinet also back staying in.
The Conservative Party has pledged to be neutral in the campaign – but the Labour Party, SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems are all in favour of staying in. US president Barack Obama also wants Britain to remain in the EU, as do other EU nations such as France and Germany. Polls show the British public seems pretty evenly split on the issue.
