TIRANA TIMES EDITORIAL
The Albanian political actors are caught in the latest petty scramble about the platform that the President IlirMeta- the so called non-paper for integration- has drafted and presented for the solution of the political crisis in Albania and the progress in its EU integration perspective. The plan itself is a curious yet incomplete medley of almost personal requests- the removal of the Justice Appointments Committee with whom the President has some beef- and other grand sweeping objectives such as the completion of the justice reform. Some of the proposals who seek wider political consensus seem sensible and others such as overturning the appointment of the Chief Negotiator for the accession talks seem misplaced.
However even prior to giving a proper verdict on the quality of the proposals, the plan fails the first test that of official communication. The Prime Minister claimed he never received this plan in writing. The President’sresponse according to which he had communicated this plan to the US Ambassador and other diplomats is unforgivable. The simplest rules of the game indicate that the letter is sent first and directly to the receiver, to the domestic key stakeholders which are supposed toenact the very same plan before sharing it with others. And sharing it with others in the expectation that they will then become the messengers to the audience is a miscalculation to say the least. This kind of mistake calls upon exactly the kind of bitter joke that the Prime Minister delivered when he said he didn’t know that the US Ambassador was supposed to cover the postal service now.
The people in the highest official positions of this state seem to have forgotten that despite the miserable condition that Albania finds itself in, it is still a sovereign country with a century of lifetime on its back and it deserves the minimum respect to decorum. It has been said before and needs to be reasserted again that our extreme dependency on the internationals is unproductive and unhealthy.
President Ilir Meta has conducted a difficult yet mostly dignified battle to protect what he believes: the constitutional order. However with this latest move he seems to have made a major slip. He could have said just as well that he had sent this plan with a post pigeon!
