Washington warns of steps back

TIRANA, Jan. 10 – In an interview to the Voice of American, Tom Countryman, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, warned Albanian politicians to reach a political compromise as the political deadlock was hampering the country’s democracy and its progress toward the integration into the European Union.
Countryman said that Albanian political parties should work together on the country’s best interests.
He hailed Albania’s participation at the mission in Afghanistan, as a NATO member, saying that “It became a NATO member because it met the standards for a parliamentary European democracy.
“The impasse and non-participation within the Albanian political system has damaged not only the reputation of Albania, but its potential to move forward on European integration and become a member of the European Union,” he said.
Countryman said that “As a NATO member and a state that says that it is ready to begin negotiations
with the European Union, Albanians must also be able to negotiate with themselves, and to resolve issues within the country in a democratic fashion, by dialogue and by compromise, and all the delay in moving forward in that direction is not helpful either to its reputation, or its time table for joining the European Union.”
Washington, the European Union and all other international institutions like the OSCE and the Council of Europe have shown they are ready to assist Albania in its electoral reform.
“The most important is the very first recommendation, that the leading parties show the political will necessary to conduct credible elections,” he said, adding “that has not yet been addressed by the leading parties in Albania.”
Countryman also urged common Albanians to be more active, participating in the country’s elections. Referring to a case of more than 30,000 citizens of Kosovo volunteering as independent election observers to guarantee the cleanliness of the elections, he said that he would love to see in Albania
30 or 60 or 90,000 citizens to be election observers.
“It is a task that doesn’t fall only to the international community but it’s incumbent upon the citizens to go out and to say, we will watch our own elections to ensure that they are fair and that they’re clean,” he said, adding they would help all non-governmental organizations to organize those volunteers.
“A repeat of the previous elections, if we can’t have credible elections, if it is followed by an impasse in the political life of Albania, will set the country back from what it has, the very impressive achievements of the last 20 years.”
“If Albania wants to have a 21st century economy, if it wants to have a clean government, if it wants to have respect for the rule of law, it needs to continue working on its European Union agenda. And it needs, as we say repeatedly, like the other nations in the region, to start with the question of the rule of law, of transparency, and clean government.”