Civic organizations against ethnic census

TIRANA, Feb. 23 – A great number of civic organizations convened to protest against the way the upcoming census it to be held, allegedly referring to the self-statement of the ethnicity,
More than 70 non-governmental organizations convened Tuesday at a meeting in capital Tirana sending a letter of protest to the government and also the international community.
The country is to hold a census starting next month based on which all individuals are free to declare their nationality. That has raised fears amo0ng the Albanian personalities that due to the Greek influence many people, most of whom immigrants in neighboring Greece will be obliged to declare themselves as ethnic Greeks to keep their jobs there. That will greatly influence the general ethnicity in a country that claims to be unilateral as far as ethnicity is concerned with few small minorities.
Ethnic Greek minority is a relevant factor, especially in post-communist Albania in the last two decades.
It has often turned into a point of conflict between the two countries.
The issue took to new heights after the Greek consul at the southeastern city of Korca called on the people and the alleged ethnic Greeks to go to the census and declare their Hellenic ethnicity.
The consul was withdrawn from Athens though it is not clear whether he will come again to the post or not.
There has been no statement from the Foreign Ministry or the central government on the issue.
The NGOs made their call clear: the government should postpone the census and take off the request for self-declaration of the nationality.
Relations between the two neighboring countries often strain and the Albanian immigrants and the ethnic Greek minority are always points of reference of such frictions.
Last year Albania’s Constitutional Court annulled an agreement with Greece marking out maritime borders and the continental shelf in the Ionian Sea.
The agreement was found unconstitutional “due to procedural and substantial violations.”
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.