Political Flare-up May Threaten Albania’s Nato Hopes

TIRANA, Aug 11 – The recent political fighting, including verbal clashes ranging to ‘death’ threats, risk Albania not becoming a full-fledged NATO member next year.
That warning was given last month by Washington, claiming the central government and Prime Minister Sali Berisha was trying to concentrate all power into his hands.
Albania’s NATO membership has been a prolonged desire and wish of the Albanian people, but most of the post-communist political parties are to take the credits for the NATO invitation.
A US diplomatic source met last month with a group of Albanian journalists to tell them Washington is growing concerned about some steps the Albanian Government has been taking since the spring of this year.
The diplomat mentioned the government’s attempts to place the Prosecutor General’s Office under its control, about Albania’s diminished image as a result of the conflict between the president and the government, and about the government’s attempts to put the State Intelligence Service under its control. Other concerns include the Assembly’s attempts to identify itself with those involved in, and indicted for, the Gerdec affair, the government’s attempts to be rid of the OSCE Mission to Albania, and the degradation of the image of the premier as seen in a recent violent Assembly session.
The west is also concerned because the last parliamentary session did not complete planned electoral and judicial reforms. That means that the upcoming session, starting in September, should resolve these two issues (while judicial reform needs urgent steps it also will take time to provide results).
Albania has less than a year until general elections and it has still to complete its reforms after voting on constitutional amendments to change the voting system into a regional proportional one.
Precisely at this time there became known a request from the government to limit the mandate of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to only electoral and judicial reforms and ending other projects.
That was not a good signal, or, more precisely, not the right one at the proper time.
The west expects that political parties, the parliament and the government should clearly show, in September, they will implement required reforms and be offered its deserved membership at NATO’s next summit in April.
But this time the international community will expect concrete results and quickly.