The results are in: In addition to halted EU integration, political deadlock has frozen new economic investment.
TIRANA TIMES
The negative results of the political conflict that reached its highest point on Jan. 21 have started to be quantified six months later. The EU integration process has halted, and it will go no further unless Albania’s political class changes its methods. And investment and reinvestment funds by foreign companies in Albania are three times lower for these six months than they were the previous year.
To make things worse, the conflict has not been solved yet. It has in fact been made worse by the local election results for Tirana mayor, which are contested and are being appealed in the courts more than a month after the elections took place. The opposition has been mainly striking out in its appeals, but they are not over yet. The face-off continues and will likely go on even after a final decision by the courts, since the opposition has indicated it will not accept any result that is not in its favor. They say they won, by ten votes, and were cheated out of their victory, adding judges are under political pressure so they can’t be trusted to make an independent decision. The central government, on the other hand, appears to ignore any international opinion that is not supporting to its claim that its representative won the Tirana mayor seat.
One of most negative implications of the crisis is that the wait-and-see mode has become the new normal. The EU sends stern messages to the political leaders, while Albania’s integration process is virtually frozen. The same trend continued this week at meetings in Brussels between Albanian and European legislators.
In addition, businesses are insecure about doing business in Albania so they don’t want to invest unless they know for sure the country is on the right path. There is less economic growth, fewer jobs and less tax revenue as a result, and so on.
Also, the insecurity since the last election stifles public investment at the local government level in Tirana, the country’s largest city. This long and arduous waiting period to find out who will be the next mayor can’t be easy on the people that work to implement projects already under way either
All these costs make up major bills that someone has to pay. Unfortunately, if the past two years are any indication, it will not be the political leaders that pay the bill. It’s the country and its people that will once again pick up the costs. And Albanians’ hopes of a future that sees the country as a prosperous EU member with a high quality of life will get dimmer.
In a recent article, The Economist magazine writes that everyone is sick of Albania. We might add to that Albanians are sick of themselves. Albanians sometime take pride at being stubborn. It’s a national trait of a small nation that has had to endure centuries of other nations trying assimilate it. But when that stubbornness is turned inward, as is the case of Albania’s political class failing to reach a compromise, it does as much damage now as it was beneficial at some points of Albania’s long history of survival as a nation.
Perhaps the most interesting trend seen coming in the past couple of weeks is that large parts of the population are becoming disengaged. Tired of the political shenanigans day in and day out, many people are deciding to tune out.
