If Albanian politics have any chance at becoming fully European, they need to focus on cooperation and decision-making by consensus, not personal interests
TIRANA TIMES EDITORIAL
There is peace at last in Albanian politics. For now, anyway. Albania’s two-year-long political paralysis ended very quietly Monday, Oct. 14, as the two major parties reached an agreement to cooperate in parliament.
The agreement will allow parliament to function properly again, approving vital laws and reforms. It is a good and welcomed sign. But the consensus on which it was built is still weak, and it will take a lot of work and will to keep in place.
Albania’s most important stated goal is to move along in its European integration, and pressure from Brussels might very well be partly behind the deal reached between the two main political parties, but it was also clear that political leaders could no longer keep the status quo going without risking of becoming irrelevant to the voters and losing legitimacy at home and abroad.
This newspaper has pointed over and over that policies and actions that move the country rapidly toward the European Union are not only needed for integration. They are needed because they ultimately make this country better, more stable and more prosperous.
If Albanian politics have any chance at becoming fully European, they need to focus on cooperation and decision-making by consensus, not only working together when both sides think there is something to gain, and going back to the trenches when the interests of one political leader or another are touched.
Understandably, Albanians have met the agreement with cautious optimism, but skepticism remains high based on the confrontational experiences of the past two years, which, if repeated, can easily make the newly-found consensus fall apart later.
But the recent agreement should also be seen as a larger shift in Albanian politics, with the opposition and ruling parties attempting to engage voters with ideas and benefits rather than the political war cries they have heard and largely rejected for the past two years. The parties will likely need a new strategy for the next two years, after which, barring unforeseen circumstances, Albania will hold the 2013 general elections. The fact that future elections are closer than the past ones appear to have channeled politics back to electoral mode.
The prime minister has been crisscrossing Albania pointing to the government’s successes like new roads and a relatively healthy economy, which have come, he says, according to the governing program of the parties in power, which promotes economic growth and jobs through low flat taxes. While the Socialist Party has started a new political action, veering clearly to the left, promising progressive taxes as well as health and pension system reforms.
The move to discussion of ideas is a healthy one, as it indicates a higher plain of evolution in politics. Now it is also time for more evolved political action that caters to a better future for the country rather than just political interests. Monday’s agreement is a first good step. But a lot more will be needed.
