TIRANA, Aug 14 – Two key laws on tourism and higher education passed by parliament amid heated debate ahead of the summer recess have receive a presidential veto, which forces parliament to review the president’s legal concerns before holding another vote on the bills.
The office of President Bujar Nishani said this week the new tourism law must be amended, arguing the government-sponsored legislation runs counter to the constitution and Albania’s other laws regarding property and local administration.
The president’s lawyers argue in a note released on the presidential website that several articles in the bill are unconstitutional or clash with other existing laws.
The president’s legal advisers took issue particularly with parts of the law that allowed for government owned land to be offered to large investors under the Albania One Euro project, which allows land or other public property to be offered at no cost for up to 99 years to a foreign investor if the investment is large enough to justify the effort.
The problem is not the scheme itself but the fact that some state lands are currently under dispute with former owners who were expropriated by the communist regime.
Another point of concern for the president relates to the fact that real estate located in areas that will be prioritized for tourism will be totally at the hands of the central government and the relevant ministry for further development.
Nishani noted that such a rule affects the constitutional principle of local autonomy and interferes with the right of ownership of the local government units.
On Friday morning, the president also released a statement saying he would veto the the controversial higher education law, expressing concern over the fact that it erodes the autonomy of public universities and increases costs for students.
Both laws had been met with protests from interest groups.
In the case of the higher education law, President Nishani had been asked directly to veto the bill in a meeting by academic leaders opposed to the law approved in parliament on July 20. They say it favors private universities and also prevents the poor from going to college due to higher costs.
They add the law deprives public universities of their independence, especially concerning research work, which the state had previously funded only for public universities and now will finance for private universities as well.
The government denies these claims and adds the law will give an end to the low quality education in the country’s universities, be they public or private.
The opposition Democratic Party has also said they will take the new law to the Constitutional Court as well as scrap it if they come to power in two years time.
Presidential vetoes in Albania are largely symbolic, as the head of state has the constitutional power to veto laws and send them back to parliament for review, however, he can do so only once and the parliament can simply reapprove the laws without any changes.
The clash between President Nishani and the Socialist-led government of Prime Minister Edi Rama – in terms of vetoing a series of key laws the ruling majority passes – is not new.
The prime minister has said publicly he does not care much about Nishani and as soon as he came to office, he removed the president’s photos from all public buildings, substituting it with that of Ismail Qemal Vlora, modern Albania’s founding father.
President Nishani, a former high official in the Democratic Party, and Prime Minister Rama come from opposing parts of the political spectrum.
President Nishani described Rama’s actions with the removal of the photo this week in a newspaper interview as a “reflection of a spirit of arrogance in a futile attempt to make any other institution or branch of power nonexistent.”
Rama has said the president cannot not detach himself from his previous political party, the main opposition Democrats, and show determination to implement a major justice reform the government has proposed.
