TIRANA, Feb. 13 – A court decision to allow the resumption of works at a controversial project in Durres, Albania’s second largest city, has left unhappy civil society activists lobbying for its cancellation due to important archeological finds.
The reaction came on Tuesday following a decision by the Durres administrative court to allow after a one-year halt the resumption of works at the controversial Veliera project except for the area where some important Roman and Ottoman era discoveries were made during diggings.
The controversial “Veliera” project is a €6 million government-funded project luxury veil-like square in front of the country’s biggest port of Durres that opponents say risks burying ancient ruins in concrete next to the landmark Durres castle and Venetian tower.
Activists say they will challenge the first-instance decision to the administrative appeals court and even address Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights to cancel the project.
“We don’t agree with the court decision at all. We will appeal the decision and take the case to Strasbourg,” said Mirela Jorgo, a lawyer representing civil society activists in the legal battle with Durres municipality.
Civil society activists had accused Durres Mayor Vangjush Dako of abuse of power and demanded legal action for the people involved in the damage of archeological finds during the diggings.
“It was a decision which saw judges locked inside for three hours. Under strong political pressure, it was decided that works in the “A” archeological zone have to be halted. We had demanded that Veliera is declared an illegal construction as long it has affected the “A” zone. And the court was evasive about that which means neither fish nor fowl,” lawyer Mirela Jorgo wrote on social media.
“The abuse of power and destruction of public good aspects were handed to the prosecutor’s office. For us, this remains a victory as it showed that the court’s strength toward political pressure can also shake. In the meantime, it is clearly evident that Veliera remains an illegal project,” she added.
The court decision also comes after the local municipality had agreed to change its initial project and preserve the finds in the 300 m2 area after a mid-2017 decision by the country’s National Archaeology Council to integrate them into a revised project.
“The revised project is the same to the initial one, but includes the archeological finds, putting them on display and making them accessible,” Durres Mayor Vangjush Dako said last January as the one-year legal battle continued.
Works in the Veliera square are almost finished with an underpass having already been completed, but part of the site has been in ruins, causing traffic in the past year.
Some ancient Roman ruins, an Ottoman era building, a cannon and some catapult stones were discovered during the ‘Veliera’ construction works in early 2017.
The €6 million ‘Veliera’ project will be a 12,000 m2 square with a giant 2,000 m2 veil on it.
The project has been criticized for its high cost at a time when Durres suffers prolonged tap water cuts, lacks a waste treatment plant with waste being burned in the open air just outside the city and faces frequent flash flooding due to lack of proper sewer systems, hampering its key tourism industry.
Socialist Party Mayor Vangjush Dako, now in his third consecutive term as Durres Mayor, has often been publicly accused by political opponents of increasing concrete areas in Durres due to alleged interests in a concrete company where he was a shareholder before taking office as Durres Mayor in 2007.
The Veliera project comes after Durres reconstructed its central square and archaeology museum in the past few years, making it more attractive to tourists.
The new bigger municipality of Durres following the 2015 administrative reform has a resident population of 175,000 people and includes five former coastal municipalities and communes.
The city’s population more than doubles in summer with dozens of thousands of local and foreign holidaymakers.
Founded in the 7th century BC under the name Epidamnos, Durres has been continuously inhabited for 27 centuries and is one of the oldest cities in Albania. The city boasts a Roman amphitheater of the 2nd century A.D, one of the largest in the Balkan.
