Constitutional Court Annuls Border Deal With Greece

TIRANA, Jan. 27 – Albania’s Constitutional Court has annulled an agreement with neighboring Greece on the delineation of the continental shelf and maritime borders in the Ionian Sea between the two countries.
“In the agreement there are procedural and substantive violations of the constitution and of the 1982 UN Convention on the Sea Rights Law,” said the court in a statement.
The decision of the court was unanimous, with all nine judges voting to strike down the agreement.
Albanian social groupings and six opposition parties asked the Court to declare it void due to the lack of transparency. The government had conducted the process before its signing during former Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis’ visit to Tirana in April last year.
After filling the required documentation it was only the Socialist party that formally made the request last November.
The Court had suspended its ratification by the parliament.
The Court considered the deal as “not in line with the Constitution” due to “procedural and substantial violations,” according to a statement Wednesday.
The legality of the agreement was questioned by the opposition Socialist Party which claimed that the government was handing Albanian territory to its neighbor for unclear political benefits.
The court heard arguments for and against the agreement from opposition lawyers and representatives of some of the highest institutions in the country, including the President’s Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, the Navy and others.
The agreement, signed by Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha and his Greek counterpart Costas Karamanlis in April 27, 2009 in Tirana, created a stir of controversy in the local media.
The agreement, based on provisions of the International Law of the Sea, was signed by the foreign ministers of Albania and Greece, Lulzim Basha and Dora Bakoyannis, respectively.
The Albanian government was accused of giving hundreds of square kilometers of its territorial waters to its southern neighbor.
They also said it was made to allow an oil pipeline Greece had been planning to pass through a short route through the Corfu channel.
The media accused Berisha and the Ministry of Defense of not delineating the division of the continental shelf according to the equidistance principle of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, on which the agreement was based, a charge which the Ministry of Defense has flatly denied.
Relations between the two countries have been strained in the past, mostly over the treatment of Albanian immigrants in Greece and of an ethnic Greek minority in southern Albania.
Meta said that the verdict would not negatively affect the ties with neighboring Greece.
But Greek deputy Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas expressed Athens concern about that adding they would ask Tirana government to explain that to them.
Droutsas said that they were “concerned for such a situation and waiting for explanation on such a verdict. We cannot comment court decisions and respect them but we are expecting the Albanian side to resolve such a situation.”
Both senior officials are to meet in London this week at an international conference on Afghanistan where they take part.
Greece has always pressed hard on Tirana in certain moments. Athens was the last to ratify the Stabilization and Association Agreement last year and it would be no surprise if it would hamper the country’s efforts to get the visa-free regime later this year.