EU launches new effort to solve Albanian crisis

TIRANA, July 7 – The European Union is expected to unveil a new agenda of talks in order to help resolve the Albanian political crisis.
The Albanian main opposition Socialist Party claims the vote count was rigged and wants a partial recount, but not to change of the results. The governing Democratic Party claims that violates the county’s laws and the Constitution.
It was the Council of Europe that managed to convince the Socialists to end their six-month boycott of the parliament in late February, but the two parties could not reach a compromise on how to create an investigative parliamentary committee, and the opposition resumed street protests. It also held a hunger strike and a practical boycott of the parliament in May.
Then the European Parliament and the European Commission managed to convince them to end the strike and invited the two leaders — Prime Minister Sali Berisha and Tirana Mayor Edi Rama — for a dinner in Strasbourg.
But their efforts so far have resulted in nothing. The opposition has said it will boycott all voting of the laws in parliament, thus turning it only into a place of debate.
Berisha and Rama have so far failed to agree on the powers of a parliamentary commission set to investigate alleged irregularities in the parliamentary ballot held on June 28, 2009.
So it seems that the European parliamentarians will again make another attempt to convince them. But that is an effort in a hot summer time that may have its negative impact in the desire of the two political groupings to compromise.
Martin Schulz, head of the leftist grouping in the European Parliament, said they are making new effort of mediation between the two opposing groupings in Albania. Together with the center-right counterpart Joseph Daul they are expected to increase their pressure on the respective leaders.