Parliament Speaker hails successes

TIRANA, Jan. 9 – Speaker Jozefina Topalli held a news conference last week Friday to hail the successes of the parliament during last year, the last move that could be held in this ever-squabbling country.
The opposition political fight has practically blocked the parliament, not letting it pass any law that requires three-fifth or 84 votes. These are usually the laws needed for the country’s steps toward the integration into the European Union.
Nevertheless that did not stop Topalli saying that “the Parliament has adopted 231 laws, decisions and resolutions” in 2010, which she said would be “remembered as the year of major events in Albania marking the realization of their dream to move freely in Europe and other important steps towards European Union membership.”
true Albania enjoys the visa liberalization regime with the EU member countries. True Albania is now a NATO member.
But that does not entitle Topalli to say that the “Parliament successfully accomplished these reforms by passing all required laws” as many other laws were left aside or opposed.
The opposition, which claims vote count manipulation at the June 2009 parliamentary polls, first boycotted the parliament. It turned back but since July last year it boycotts all its voting.
But that is Albania’s ways to show successes, triumphs always as it has been used to during its former communist regime that all political actors and factors now condemn publicly.
Albania is much better than 20 years ago but it is still far away from becoming a member country with the European Union. Its membership with NATO could be more said to have been done for strategic purposes of the big powers than its successes.
This tiny Balkan country is the last in the queue of the western Balkan countries (but Kosovo) hoping to become one day, for them soon, a member of the bloc.