TIRANA, Jan. 4 – Following are the main political developments during 2006.
January
The parliament passes the law on creation of the commission for the electoral reform to amend the electoral code and fulfill the suggestions from the international community to have better elections in the future. The debate was launched a month ago from President Alfred Moisiu who convened the main parliamentary political parties and urged them to sign an agreement. The two main political parties decide not to change the format of the electoral system, that is, to keep it a mixture of the proportional with the majority election. Smaller political parties from both sides come out against the way this parliamentary electoral commission was created and would work. The international community, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, hail the creation of the parliamentary commission.
Albania and the International Monetary Fund sign the draft document on the three-year assistance to the tiny Balkan country.
February
The OSCE’s Warsaw-based Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) urges Albanian political parties to urgently start the electoral reform. OSCE holds roundtable on voters’ list, one of the main topics of contest.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation gives $13.85 million to Albania for restructured reforms.
Washington convenes senior officials from Albania, Croatia and Macedonia of the Adriatic 3 Charter hoping to join NATO by 2008.
EC head Manuel Barroso holds a visit to Tirana following the initiating of the first page of the SAA.
The European Union initialed a pre-membership agreement with Albania, in a first step in Tirana’s efforts to join the EU. The EU’s Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn and Albanian Foreign Minister Besnik Mustafaj initialed the Stabilization and Association Agreement, considered as a first step toward membership in the bloc.
The U.N. World Food Program ends its nearly decade-long operation in Albania, saying the country no longer required its assistance.
Albanian President Alfred Moisiu visits Rome, where he meets with Pope Benedict XVI and Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.
Albania and Greece sign an agreement to repatriate and provide care for child victims of human trafficking, the first such a deal in the Balkans.
The prime ministers of Albania, Croatia and Macedonia said Tuesday they were determined their countries will be NATO members by 2008, and pledged further regional cooperation as they seek integration into the European Union.
March
Opposition protest against way of voting a vote of confidence for Speaker Jozefina Topalli. They said it should have been secret voting. Opposition starts a series of noisy protests at the parliament’s hall.
Tom Ridge, former head of the U.S. Homeland Security department, commended Albania for its commitment to eliminating internal corruption, its fight against organized crime and participation in anti-terror efforts.
A parliamentary commission presents to the parliament the investigation on how the July 3, 2005 general elections were held. Opposition left the hall to protest against its transparency.
President does not decree the law on legalization.
The parliament passes a law on prohibiting speedboats be used in the next three years to prevent human and drug trafficking from Albania.
Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha said Tuesday that NATO membership would best secure the country’s future and the tiny Balkan country was ready to pay any price to achieve it.
Albania finds first case of bird flu, no human victims.
Planned bust of Mother Teresa creates friction in Albania’s Muslim community.
Kosovo officials started in Durres a three-day meeting Monday on a minorities’ rights package to be presented at the next round of U.N.-sponsored talks between Serbian officials and ethnic Albanian leaders over the future status of the province.
An estimated 33 percent of Albanian women have been victims of domestic violence, according to a report released by Amnesty International.
April
International community urges Albania proceed with the electoral reform.
Governing Democratic Party-led coalition accuses Prosecutor-General Theodhori Sollaku of links to the Mafia and asks for his move from the post. Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha on Sunday called for the country’s prosecutor general to be fired, accusing him of links to organized crime.
Socialists, Social Democrats, Social Democracy and Democratic Alliance parties sign a coalition.
The United States and Albania sign a US$13.85 million (euro11.48 million) aid agreement to help the tiny Balkan country tackle corruption and improve the business environment.
Albanian President Alfred Moisiu undergoes surgery at a Turkish military hospital.
The Albanian parliament has voted to ban the use of small boats and speedboats as the government tries to stop smuggling of people, drugs and weapons from its waters into the European Union.
UNDP administrator Kemal Dervis praises Albania’s collaboration with the U.N. Development Program, saying it was a regional role model in efforts to achieve good governance and pledged further assistance to one of Europe’s poorest countries.
Frank Wisner, U.S. envoy to talks on the future status of Kosovo, visits Tirana at the end of a Balkan tour.
Albania and China pledge to strengthen bilateral commercial ties. Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu holds a three-day visit to the Albanian capital for talks with senior Albanian officials on economic issues.
Albania’s army has destroyed all of its anti-personnel mines and will eliminate all chemical agents by the end of the year as part of a program to scrap excess weaponry by 2010.
The presidents of several countries in southeast Europe meet at an Albanian resort to discuss strengthening ties, intensifying trade and efforts to integrate with the European Union and NATO.
May
Central Election Commission appeals to political parties to speed up electoral reform steps.
Parliamentary commission on electoral reform holds its first meeting.
In a public letter to the political parties Albanian President Alfred Moisiu expresses concern that the country’s political parties will not complete electoral reform in time for the local government polls.
Constitutional Court is against the government law on High Council of Justice.
The Netherlands provides Albania with a 1.6 million (US$2 million) grant to remove pesticides and other chemicals considered a risk to public health and the environment from an abandoned plant outside a western port city.
Albania agrees to take in five Uighurs former detainees at the Guantanamo Bay for several years after being picked up during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Explosions at army weapon depots in southern Albania killed an army officer and injured four others.
Police arrest a British man working with a children foundation in Albania for alleged pedophilia.
A report of the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) “finds that (children’s) exclusion in Albania is a result of poverty, migration, weak governance, slow decentralization, insufficient policies and inadequate implementation of laws.” It said that Albania lacked social policies for thousands of children facing social exclusion and discrimination.
Senior officials from 17 central and southeast European countries meet in Albania’s capital to discuss cooperation and integration in the region.
Kosova’s Prime Minister Agim Ceku holds a visit to Albania saying that the province’s independence was inevitable.
Europe’s soccer authority, UEFA, threatens to suspend Albania following alleged government interference into the independence of the local soccer institution.
June
Albania signs a pre-membership agreement with the European Union committing to economic and political reforms that are a prerequisite for its future entry into the 25-nation EU.
Nard Ndoka elected head of the Christian Democrats to replace Nikolle Lesi.
Albania hails Montenegro’s independence from referendum. The government recognizes the new independent state of Montenegro.
Moisiu does not decree a law on public radio and television.
The U.S. State Department issues a report criticizing Albania for not doing enough to fight human trafficking, and said the tiny Balkan country remained a source for prostitution and forced labor.
Berisha visits Kosova, saying that an improvement in the way the ethnic Albanians in Kosova treat that province’s Serb minority would lead to an improvement in relations between Serbs and Albanians after years of enmity and distrust.
Opposition boycotts parliamentary investigative commission on prosecutor-general.
A study from the Albanian Institute of Statistics and the World Bank showed that poverty levels in Albania reduced significantly in 2002-2005 due to strong economic growth in the tiny Balkan country, but the problem remains in rural areas. The study showed that absolute poverty had fallen from 25 percent in 2002 to 18.5 percent in 2005.
Kosova’s President Fatmir Sejdiu visits Albania, says the ethnic Albanian population in the province must acknowledge and live alongside the Serb minority.
Otto Baric, the former Croatia and Austria coach, signs deal to coach the national team in its qualifiers for the 2008 European Championship.
July
Opposition holds protests at Skanderbeg Square on electoral reform, draft media law.
Opposition boycotts voting for report on prosecutor-general.
Opposition protests in parliamentary sessions.
Moisiu pardons 62 prisoners following a request from local government authorities.
Pjeter Arbnori, a former parliament speaker who spent 28 years in prison as a dissident during the communist regime, died from a stroke at a hospital in Italy. He was 71.
The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture urges Albania to improve the treatment of prisoners, citing evidence that inmates were detained in what it considered “inhuman conditions” in several jails.
A military helicopter transporting Gramoz Pashko to a hospital in Italy crashes in the Adriatic Sea. It also carried his 24-year old son, two pilots, a technician and a doctor.
The Albanian government freezes another bank account belonging to a businessman accused by U.S. authorities of receiving money from Osama bin Laden to set up a radical Islamic terrorist network in Albania.
FIFA and UEFA threaten to suspend Albania from international matches unless the government stops interfering in the independence of the country’s national federation.
Albania gives asylum to five Chinese Muslims released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Albania’s lawmakers engage in a scuffle in parliament following a heated debate over the naming of a member of the country’s body dealing with elections.
August
Moisiu does not decree Sollaku’s move from the post as parliament had asked, needs more clarifications.
Albania and Montenegro establish diplomatic ties.
Clirim Gjata elected head of the Central Election Commission.
Anton Gurakuqi of the Christian Democrats nominated vice foreign minister.
Albania established diplomatic ties with Afghanistan.
Lockheed Martin Corp. signs a $17 million contract with Albania to install a maritime surveillance system to help it fight organized crime along its coasts.
Two feuding Albanian political parties reach a compromise over a dispute that threatened to delay municipal elections, and that the vote would take place in the coming months.
September
OSCE and the United States welcome the Albanian political compromise over a dispute that threatened to delay municipal elections, and urged that it be implemented quickly.
Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha hires former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge as a consultant to advise his government on a range of issues including NATO membership, fighting corruption and tackling organized crime.
OSCE to help Albania prepare electoral lists that have been considered a major shortcoming in the tiny Balkan country’s recent polls.
Berisha says that Albania will renegotiate the privatization of the sale of state phone company Albtelecom with a Turkish consortium after an international audit showed defects in the previous contract.
Senior military officials from southeastern European countries convene in the Albanian capital to discuss Balkan military ties, security issues and participation in international military missions.
Berisha visits Turkey and Greece.
Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha calls Serbia’s opposition to Kosovo’s independence unrealistic and suggests the international community may have to impose a solution to resolve the disputed province’s status.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visits Albania in a regional tour, takes part at the meeting of Southeast defense ministers.
October
Turk hijacks Turkish Airline plane from Albania to Italy.
Albania on Friday signs a euro418 million contract with a U.S.-Turkish joint venture to build a four-lane stretch of highway that will shorten the route to neighboring Kosova, the biggest ever infrastructure project in the tiny Balkan country.
Reinhardt Priebe, director of the Office for Western Balkans in the EU Enlargement Commission, receives the Medal of Gratitude from Moisiu in recognition of “his contribution in the important process of negotiations between the Albanian government and the European Commission up to the signing of the Stabilization and Association Agreement.”
Albania’s president refuses demands by lawmakers to fire the country’s prosecutor general.
An Albanian soldier in Iraq is lightly injured by a grenade.
U.N. administrator for Kosova Joachim Ruecker visits Albania.
Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha says his government is ready to contribute peacekeeping troops for an international mission in Lebanon and also to increase its presence in Afghanistan.
The European Union reminds Albania that holding free and fair elections was an important factor in its hope to eventually join the European Union.
Albania says that the new Serbian constitution’s claim over Kosova is unacceptable.
The Albanian parliament passes a resolution denouncing the crimes of the former communist regime, and asks that the secret police files on all public figures in the country be opened.
November
Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha says that an Albanian army unit will soon join the United Nations force in Lebanon.
OSCE says Albania must strengthen its judiciary by improving access to lawyers for criminal suspects and encouraging a robust appeals process.
Berisha says postponing a resolution of Kosova’s future status could threaten regional stability and urged Kosova Albanians to support their negotiating team.
Ministers and officials from the EU and the western Balkans _ Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia _ pledge during a two-day meeting in Tirana to work toward developing an integrated border management system to strengthen the fight against organized crime and terrorism.
Albania says it will get three other former detainees released from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after U.S. authorities determined they were no longer “enemy combatants.”
An army officer is killed while destroying a shell at a military base in southeastern Albania.
The Albanian parliament calls for a quick solution to the future status of Kosovo and appealed to ethnic Albanians there to avoid violence.
Senior economic officials and experts from 18 central and southeast European countries meet in Albania’s capital to discuss regional cooperation and promotion of business links.
Moisiu pardons 70 prisoners in a traditional gesture before the country’s Independence Day and the anniversary of its liberation from German occupation during World War II.
An OSCE report writes that Albania’s bitter political climate has been affecting the ability to carry out much-needed electoral reforms before upcoming local elections.
Berisha acknowledges his country had broken a United Nations embargo on the former Yugoslavia during wars in the early 1990s.
December
Moisiu sets Jan. 20 as the date for local elections amid a bitter political climate that has delayed much-needed electoral reforms.
Government increases lower pensions to at least 10,000 leks per month.
KESH imposes power cuts throughout the country due to difficulties in importing and domestic production.
Albanian opposition parties decide to boycott Jan. 20 local elections, claiming that the governing Democratic Party-led coalition lacked the will to reform the electoral code.
Defense ministers of six Balkan countries meet in Tirana to discuss their countries’ efforts to join NATO.
The European Union tells Albania’s political parties to take responsibility for electoral reform and not expect international community to sort out their problems.
The Council of Europe says that political confrontation in Albania is delaying much-needed reforms of the electoral code and the media.
A fuel storage tank exploded in Shengjin injuring at least six firefighters.
Albania signs in Bucharest, Romania together with Balkan countries an expanded free trade agreement that aims to help nations hoping to join the European Union reform their economies.
ODIHR sends the first group of 22 observers for Albania’s Jan. 20 local elections.
The Albanian government seizes assets of a man who allegedly worked with Osama bin Laden to provide support to terror networks in Albania.
