News Analysis
Debates regarding the candidacy of the new Albanian Ambassador to Athens, Luela Hajderaga, have dominated the meetings of the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee during the past few days. The strongest opposition to the candidacy has come from former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ditmir Bushati who spoke of legal violations both in the procedure followed to elect Hajderaga and in the selection of the candidacy, which, according to him, does not meet the criteria.
The proposal of Hajdaraga, came weeks after the dismissal of the ambassador in Athens Ardiana Hobdari and a good part of the leading staff, after issues were found in the activity of the Embassy as well as due to lack of services for Albanian citizens living in Greece, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Bushati pointed out that Albania has historically appointed well-known diplomats or people with a high public profile as its representatives in Greece, while emphasizing that important issues are still open with Athens, thus diplomatic experience must be of priority.
However, Bushati is the same minister who endorsed the change in legislation by the Socialist Party in 2014, which allowed for the appointment of ambassadors with less criteria in the first place, thus rendering his latest statements contradictory.
Six years ago, the Socialist Party made it possible for Ambassadors to be elected based on a 10-year work experience dealing with foreign relations – a vague set of criteria as opposed to the previous legislation which demanded no less than 14 years in the foreign ministry to get the title of counsellor.
The changes that have unfolded during these last seven years have brought to light several issues in the Foreign Service. Sources for Tirana Times confirm that:
- Almost 100 percent of the total 50 Ambassadors have been serving abroad for over 8-10 years without returning to Albania, even though the law stipulates that Ambassadors are assigned every four years
- Over 20 percent of the current Ambassadors are retirees but they remain on duty
- Only 10 percent of Ambassadors came from the Foreign Service
- Until 2013, the previous law allowed only 20% of ambassadors could be appointed from outside the service
- The 2014 law eradicated this quota: this barrier was removed
- Currently, over 90 percent come from outside the Foreign Service
In turn, this has made it easier to land a position in the Foreign Service than in the Public Administration.
Following the change in the legislation, a group of Albanian diplomats with a long history in foreign diplomatic service whose names were left unknown, sent the following e-mail to a number of EU, US and German representatives through third parties in 2014:
“Our diplomatic service is facing a deadly blow with the new draft law due to be passed on Thursday by the parliament majority. The law puts the foreign service completely under political control. The hitherto law foresees 20% of the ambassadors as political appointees. The new law removes this figure thus enabling 100% political appointments; not just ambassadors but also other diplomatic posts. Even some MPs like Arta Dade have failed to avoid that from happening. It’s not strange that even the opposition keeps silent about it. They can use the law politically, too, when back to power. Such practice goes against EU practices, even though, as candidate EU country we are supposed to make legislation according to EU standards. There is serious concern and despair among career diplomats who see no future for their career under the new law and we feel powerless about it. Years of investment in the service could be rendered useless. This never happened before, at least injustice was never legalized.”
Ernest Geller’s notion of “tyranny of cousins” describes a primitive stage of society, one still ruled by the power of the tribe and by family ties, which is a phenomenon that was quite evident during Bushati’s mandate as Foreign Minister.
Bushati has incited this tyranny of incompetence by appointing two of his cousins as Ambassadors in Athens and Washington D.C. at the time, although both exhibiting an obvious lack of experience in the area. This further proves that the Foreign Service in Albania has been invalidated; positions in which prominent Albanian diplomats Mid’hat Frasheri and Faik Konica once served in, are being filled by incompetent and inexperienced individudals.
Although Bushati’s statements may be valid as regards the criteria that Hajderaga does, or in this case, does not meet, this is only a continuation of the system that he himself perpetuated during the initial four years of his mandate, by completely undermining the Foreign Service in Albania. Today, instead of a law that applies to all diplomatic missions, each ambassador requires a special law.
That being said, the Albanian Foreign Service now needs the restoration of constitutional order, as it is the most fundamental of them all. The government must establish a clear vision regarding current and future diplomatic missions abroad as well as restore the law to what it once was in Albania and continues to be across every country in the world – whether democratic or not.
