In a Hard Talk-style interview on Germany’s DW public broadcaster last week, the journalist kept pressing Albania’s prime minister on why the country wants to join the EU. “Are you looking for more money?” – was the repeated question by a journalist who had insisted on digging up all the dirt he could find about the country – mafia, crime, drugs, corruption – and so on.
It’s the duty of journalists to press politicians, particularly ones like Albania’s prime minister who has left himself wide open to those types of questions by selecting a few people with shady characters to be lawmakers and municipal leaders. Yet, we have to say the prime minister gave decent answers under the context of a hard interview. He could have been a little clearer on the EU question. Why do Albanians want to join the EU? The first answer is simple: Hope. Albanians are European, and they want to legitimize that claim by having a passport that says European Union on it. It’s that simple. But as with all things EU simple answers don’t always work in complex situations.
Despite the persistent bad image abroad, Albanians have shown repeatedly through their actions the humanist and European values they hold. This week, a popular international blog, Humans of New York, featured the story of a Syrian refugee who traveled to Vienna through the Balkans. The young man recounted the inhuman treatment he had received along the way. Greek police officers had refused to give him food and water for days, he said. But he singled out Albania as the sole place where a police officer had chosen to take a group of exhausted refugees to his own home, fed and clothed them for a week, before helping them move on.
Albanians have been refugees and migrants themselves. Empathy has been learned the hard way in this country, but is a value to be held close to heart. The refugee crisis has complicated matters for Albania and the EU’s non-member Western Balkans enclave, however. It’s another headache that shifts attention away from enlargement, as EU authorities already burdened by the economic crisis will have to shift attention and resources elsewhere.
But it also places migration on a different light. In addition to validating their European identity, the passport that says European Union on it, would allow Albanians to have labor mobility. In the eyes of the common Albanian, that is greatest benefit of EU membership, even-though experts know that the benefits of membership are much more complex and ultimately aim to transform a country so that people do not want to leave the first occasion they get – which surveys show more than half of Albanians want to do right now – if they could find a job and work legally elsewhere.
With EU membership or another form of labor mobility, the current asylum-seeking trend in Germany would be gone overnight. Yet, it is incredible that in 2015, about 40,000 Albanians have gone to Germany to seek asylum – mostly escaping poverty at home. That’s as if the entire city of Kavaja or Gjirokastra had decided to move out the country in eight months.
German authorities say economic migrants, like those from the Western Balkans, are not genuine refugees. And they are right. However, the fact that these men, women and children from Albania take the costly and emotionally wrenching journey to Germany shows that they are escaping from something that can’t be easily quantified as simple poverty.
In an interview with Tirana Times last month, German Ambassador Hellmut Hoffmann said: “I think it’s a question for the entire society, the entire Albanian political class, to ask themselves the fundamental question: What is going on in this country that so many people are actually ready to leave?” He added there is no point to use this matter for political football and finger pointing. And he is right.
The reality is that Albanians more than anything need inspiration and hope, which the country’s current political leaders – both in power and opposition – are failing to provide. Harsh language, threats and endless rhetoric are turning people off – and they can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The level of hopelessness we are witnessing cannot be justified by the weak state of the Albanian economy alone or by the government’s policies to collect delayed electricity bills and to make sure everyone pays the taxes they owe. These policies, though financially painful for many, are necessary for the long-term well being of the country.
Slow economic recovery should eventually encourage job creation and employment alleviating some of the current woes. But people need to be inspired into seeing the benefits of the reforms not just being threatened with fines and jail – as the government often does.
The World Bank said this week the government must support the poorest Albanians with direct financial assistance to soften the blows of the reforms it is currently undertaking.
In addition, a longer-term approach is needed to fight hopelessness.
As the World Bank’s Ellen Goldstein put it this week: “Creating incentives for greater labor force participation, investing in human capital, reversing the trends of high emigration, and creating income generating opportunities at home will help motivate young individuals to stay or return from abroad … thereby not only addressing the challenge of aging but also increasing the quality and quantity of human capital.”
