TIRANA, Oct. 4 – There should be no parliament ratified deal for the bilateral issues between Albania and Greece until the Constitutional Court in Albania starts to function at full capacity once again. This statement was made by Albanian President Ilir Meta during an official visit to the United States, speaking to VoA in the local Albanian service. Meta clarified his position about the negotiations explaining that he has reached a consensus with the Prime Minister Rama despite having some initial difficulties with Foreign Affairs’ Minister Bushati.
Meta said that any other form of reaching the deal would not be a sustainable solution and would not serve the interests of both countries. Actually the ruling SP doesn’t even need the opposition MP numbers in parliament to seal the deal.
The Constitutional Court in Albania is blocked since it now has only two members. Three judges finished their mandate while four others have been deemed unappropriated to go on in their position due to the vetting process results.
Even during the negotiations and the meetings, there have been several concerns about the transparency of the deal.
The opposition says it and the relevant parliamentary institutions have neither been consulted nor informed on the negotiations. Some politicians, like former Prime Minister Sali Berisha, have warned a new conflict between Albania and Greece could be the result if the deal is reached without transparency.
Albanian institutions, with the exception of the government, and the public at large are getting more information from Greek news media than Albanian officials involved in the talks.
President Meta initially halted the negotiations due to expressed lack of proper information about them, only to reauthorize them in early March of this year after several rounds of correspondence with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Diplomatic sources told Tirana Times that in fact the agreement was negotiated as early as last year and as late as the first two months of this year. However, according to the official record, these negotiations officially started only three months and half ago, when the government received the official permission to negotiate from the President of the Republic. Moreover, diplomatic sources confirmed that the Albanian side was given a new agreement with some partial and technical corrections from the Greek side, which were nonnegotiable, and the rest of what appears like negotiation is just for show.
Instead clarifying what Albania will get from the sea border dispute, the Albanian government has been much more open in declaring as “wins” issues included in the “package of negotiations,” such as the recognition of Albanian driving licenses and apostille stamps, as well as the removal of the Law on the State of War.
Although these are agreements that will benefit a number of Albanians living in Greece, foreign policy experts have said it is wrong to include them in the same package of negotiations as the maritime border agreement, as their benefits to citizens will only be peripheral.
The context pronounces even more the likelihood that any reached deal would need to pass through the proper constitutional check mechanism.
Albania and Greek diplomats have met twice to discuss pending unresolved issues between the two countries.
These most prominent among them is the final demarcation of the areas in the Ionian Sea. The former respective deal reached between the two countries during the Berisha administration was struck down as unconstitutional by the Court in 2009. The negotiations however are supposed to examine a wider list of issues including the removal of the Law of Status of War with Albania that Greece still upholds in relation to the Greco-Italian war of the 40s.
