Tirana Times
TIRANA, Oct. 18 – The Albanian Institute of International Studies, supported from the Spanish Embassy, the AECID and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, held Monday the “The European Perspective of Albania” National Conference.
The conference, in which a number of local and international personalities, and officials took part, introduced the recent study on the Albanian citizens’ perception on the European Union.
Since 2003 the AIIS has carried out its study into the levels of support and understanding of the EU integration process amongst Albanians.
Albert Rakipi of the AIIS said that despite relatively similar figures on the results, there is still a fundamental change noted in the last survey. Albanians’ trend to join EU has not changed, there are more Albanians saying integration is important and not just a priority.
“It remains to be seen the public real support to the integration when the visas are lifted and other challenger come ahead,” said Rakipi.
The study includes the opinion of politicians, entrepreneurs, media professionals and public administration workers, of the Albanian public as a whole, regardless of status, age and education. the seventh study covers the data and conclusions provided by the AIIS surveys and reports in the previous six Perceptions and Realities.
Spanish Ambassador Manuel Montobbio said that the AIIS report is the only measure of public opinion on EU in Albania, adding that in democracy one needs measurement of public opinion in order to know what is the actual situation, to know what people think of European integration.
“This study is very important and should be debated everywhere (parliament, government etc).
My message: don’t finish here!! The real challenge is to take ownership of the process,” he said. “Don’t ask what can EU do for you, but what can you do for EU. This is the right question.”
The ambassador said that the challenge is not to be member state of EU, but to be a state of EU, that is the rule of law, functioning of the democratic system and the like.
Foreign Minister Edmond Haxhinasto said the conference was being held at a key moment when the EU was to decide on the country’s visa liberalization.
He said it is important to know the public opinion and the ministry would exploit its the research recommendations and urged the people to be part of the itnegration process because “that will make the integration a property not only for the government but for the public opinion too.”
Through the years, the surveys and studies have shown that there exists amongst Albanian a huge, almost unanimous support for their countries integration in the EU.
Aldo Bumci, lawmaker of the governing Democratic Party and of the parliament’s integration commission, said that the integration “has served as a catalyser for the reforms, has faciltiated the reforms.”
Michael Weichart of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation hoped that the study would generate debate, reflections and create a lobby for integration.
“The findings show that the process cannot be left to the government, but also public opinion, media, NGOs should take ownership of it,” he said.
There exists no single political party, media or group of interest in Albania that opposes integration. This level of support and complete lack of opposition has often been exploited by Albania’s governments as an alibi for pushing through dubious policies and reforms, which are always presented under the guise of EU conditionalities.
The present study was based on a survey carried out in the main urban centres of Albania between May and June 2010 with a sample of 1200 respondents.
Perhaps the greatest surprise of all is precisely the fact that the results are so similar even though the survey was carried out in the midst of a serious political crisis that at the time of the survey had been ongoing for almost a year.
The survey once again confirms the extremely high levels of support for EU accession that exist in Albania.
In 2010 a full 93.4% replied that they would vote in favour of their country joining the EU were a referendum to be held on the next day. Only 3.6% declared that they would vote against accession in a hypothetical referendum.
Three possible explanations spring to mind. First, there is no single politician, political party, media group, civil society organization or public figure that publicly opposes EU integration. Secondly, in the perception of many Albanians the perceived benefits of joining the EU simply outweigh any potential costs the integration entails. Thirdly, given the political discourse in post-Communist Albania, EU membership would be perceived by many Albanians as bringing an end to the hardships and tribulations of the by now 20 year old transition.
The results of the 2010 survey exclude the possibility of significant rise of Euro-scepticism among Albanians, but two pieces of data seem to warrant a rather more cautious reading. While one cannot speak of outright opposition to accession, there seems to be a cooling down of the enthusiasm of the Albanians for their country’s EU integration. First, the percentage of those who deem integration to be very important has fallen significantly, by 8.9 percentage points as compared to 2009. It stands at the “low” level of 72.6%. The percentage of those who deem integration to be important but not a priority has correspondingly grown by 9.1 percentage points standing at 23.4%.
Standing at 72.6%, the percentage of those who deem integration very important is still very high by any standards, but in the Albanian context it could very well herald the nascent
phases of a potential Euro-scepticism
Thus the single most important reason for supporting integration, standing at 37%, is free movement. Will Albanians be as enthusiastic about EU integration and the related costs once they have been granted the possibility to travel freely through Europe?
Next to free movement, expectations of higher living standards once Albania joins the EU constitute the most important reason for voting in favour of accession, standing at 29.3%. The other important reason for support is that accession will consolidate democracy and the rule of law. A full 17.1% of Albanians would vote in favour of EU accession for this reason.
Respondents indicated who should be Albania’s man strategic partners. The EU gained the most support with a full 82% giving maximal marks to the organization as a strategic partner of Albania. Important EU countries, such as Germany, UK, Italy, Spain, and France also received high scores. The United States also received very high scores, although it did not match the results obtained by the EU.
When asked to give their opinion on the progress made from 2009 to 2010, the largest group, 45.4% replied that the country has progressed somewhat. 17.6% on the other hand were of the opinion that a lot of progress has been made; a reduction of 6% when compared to 2009. A significant minority, 22.4% thought that little progress has been made while 11% were of the opinion that no progress at all has been achieved.
For all the optimism in the opinions on the progress of Albania a full 50% of respondents responded that Albania is not yet ready to join the EU, while a considerable 36% do think their country is ready to join the Union. Once again the better educated category was more sceptical with 63.9% saying Albania is not ready.
A majority of respondents, 54.3% said that the EU should not accept Albania before the country is ready for membership; a positive outcome compared to previous years when Albanians seemed to think that EU membership was up to Brussels rather than to the progress made by their country. Nevertheless a significant 41.8% continue to think that their country should be granted EU membership even if it does not meet the integration criteria and does not deserve to join the EU; a very high percentage that is indicative of the levels of misinformation
and ignorance on the integration process.
The really surprising figures, however, concern the extremely high percentage of those who think that Albania will join the EU either in 2012 or in 2014. In fact there has been an increase by 15.9 percentage points in those who expect Albania to join in 2014, while only a puny 17.3% held the more realistic belief that Albania will join the EU in 2020. Ignorance of EU integration and of the distance the country has yet to cover coupled with an eagerness to join would perhaps explain these outlandish expectations.
The survey revealed that the Albanian public has been significantly influenced in its views by the political crisis that has dominated public life in Albania since the general elections of June 2009. The need for free and fair elections as a factor of integration has suddenly jumped by 91 percentage points as compared to 2009, gaining top of the list with 87%. The economy as a factor of integration has also gained in importance standing at 71%.
