TIRANA, June 9 – “I want all Albanians to know but also all our very valuable international friends that this is the last time, at least for me the very last time this happens”, Prime Minister Rama said referring to the international arbitration process on the electoral reform that saw an intensive almost outside of job-description engagement of the key ambassadors in Tirana. The declaration was made in during today’s meeting of the National Council for EU Integration which was held online. However the key political actors including the President of the Republic, the PM, the Speaker of the Assembly convened to address the other participants from the Assembly premises.
Rama commented that everyone is right to be shocked at the fact that political actors had to convene in foreign embassies order to spend hours and days on agreeing on what relay resulted to be relatively minor tweaks at the Electoral Code. The negotiators simply agreed not to change things, Rama himself reiterated.
Treading into his emblematic humor territory, Rama said that next time such a negotiations are needed then “they can met at the President’s office despite the ongoing controversies with him or otherwise at the office of the chief mufti, of Baba Mondi [the Bektashi head] or the protestants which are considered more neutral”.
Rama said the international partners should not mind and that domestic actors should show that if they are serious and committed they can accomplish things on their own. This signals a major departure from the usually accommodating stance towards significant engagement of international community
Experts vary on their evaluation of the role of the international community in Albania with many of them decrying the legacy of dependency which hampers the development of democratic maturity.
Opposition leader absent from meeting
Although Albanian opposition leader Lulzim Basha was expected to participate in the National Council for EU Integration Meeting today, he did not show up. According to the agenda of the meeting, as seen exclusively by Tirana Times, Basha would have beeen the first to comment on the Action plan for integration, followed by PM Rama.
The meeting went on without the opposition leader as the Action plan was presented by Albanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gent Cakaj, who said that the first seven conditions in the framework are needed for the upcoming conference. Among these, he mentioned the Electoral Reform, the reduction of the number of asylum seekers, the finalization of the Constitutional Court to the High Court as well as the review of the ‘Anti-libel’ package.
