Europe reminds Albania of its duties

TIRANA, Dec. 9 – Albania could be said is under emergency due to the flooding in its northwestern area. The whole cabinet and other authorities focus their daily work in assisting the evacuated people in Shkodra. More rain expected and that raises fears.
Flooding did not escape the political fight as immediately the opposition tried to exploit it blaming the government and the latter immediately reacted against.
That is normal in this country.
But the tiny Balkan country has also asked the European Union to become a candidate status. Earlier this year, when there was no flooding but only political fight, Europe told Tirana it has to do much more, precisely focus on 12 issues.
Prime Minister Sali Berisha said at the time that would be his cabinet’s daily agenda for the next year.
But less than a month after that is forgotten, or at least not mentioned either from the government or the opposition.
Luigi Brusa, head of the European Commission Delegation office in Tirana, tried to wake Albanian leaders up at a meeting he had with students.
Brusa said that the country should immediately start work on fulfilling the 12 issues set from Brussels.
Brusa said that those 12 topics should be the benchmarks of the daily work. And he also urged cooperation of the Albanian politics to carry them out.
Not being present when the diplomat held that lecture to the students and not listening to the exact words refrains from any conclusion. But if it straightly like that as mentioned above it means that the government and the country in general have not started to do anything on those topics.
That is very bad.
True the government should focus on coping with the floods. True that the opposition should also try to help, assist in that operation and, naturally for Albania, continue its political fight.
But it is also true that being an EU member means a lot, including how to cope with emergency situations and continue the daily work not to let the country frozen because of that.
Europe also means cooperation and taking hard decisions in hard times.