Albania EP meeting in Brussels, harsh debate between Macovei and Bumci

Monica Macovei, chairwoman of the committee between Albania and the European Parliament: “Let’s hear each other first”.

Aldo Bumçi, vice chairman of the Albanian delegation: Very well. Allow me.

Macovei: No, please let me speak.

Bumçi: This committee should not…

Macovei: Please, don’t intervene…

Bumçi: This committee needs to have the same rules.

Same as in the past year, the opposition complained that they are not notified about the actions of secretaries between the two legislative institutions.

“This is a problem of your Parliament, that’s why I don’t think it is honest to say that you gave not received them, because we have the e-mail as evidence”, Macovei declared.

The vice chairman of the Albanian delegation asked an inclusion of the local elections in the discussion agenda. The chairwoman of the committee did not agree on this, since this topic had been mentioned before. She said more important topics needed to be mentioned, such as the judiciary reform, decriminalization, fight against corruption and organized crime.

The discussion degenerated to lectures on democracy and civil behavior, which irritated the Democratic Party MP. For him, the elections are the base of democracy, and this was the first inter-parliamentary meeting after they were held.

Macovei: Democracy is giving arguments, not yelling and interrupting each-other.

Bumçi: We have been holding meetings in this format for years. We may not agree for the final recommendations, and this is also part of democracy. This meeting is supposed to create consensus. If we do not reach this, you cannot do it by changing the rules.

Macovei: You hear the other and then you have the right to speak. If we agree with the recommendations, we will pass them. If not, we will not pass them. The last time we met you said you knew about it and decided to not pass them one week before holding the meeting. Let’s say that I am forgetting this, since you started it with the same story. We need to progress, and progress cannot be reached by not approving any resolution and by fighting all the time. This is not progress, and I will continue with the agenda, because we have guests who expect to take their turn to speak.

This was the first meeting in which the representative Jean-Eric Paquet, the current Director of Balkan at the European Commission, met with the Albanian Parliament Members.

Catherine Wendt mentioned the main recommendation of the progress report, and was involved in the debate about the justice reform. In this debate, the opposition said there is no sense for the majority to hide behind foreign experts, as if they were not aware of the draft sent at the Venice Commission.

The Minister of Integration, Klajda Gjosha, presented data from her government regarding the agenda topics. The representative of the EU diplomatic service held a speech, while the Socialist were aiming to approve the joint final conclusions with the main message: “Starting EU accession negotiations”.

Bumçi: The bad news is there is no signal for opening the negotiations. The reason why this happens is the reality of Albania.

Taulant Balla, chairman of the Albanian delegation and co-director of the EP-Albanian  Committee: The draft     of the recommendations that came from the European Parliament secretariat, had our support. It is a sign of our readiness to give consensus for the opposition. We did not present any amendment.

Bumçi: We proposed at the resolution only the cases that are true. The local elections held this year brought the most critical OSCE-ODIHR report since 2003. Another important issue is related to the decriminalization process, which has been delayed for one year. The third is the justice reform. The entire legal package was sent without allowing the opposition to express itself.

Balla: The amendments of the opposition were more than the document that came from the European Parliament. It was impossible to reach consensus for a joint document.

The conclusions of the ninth inter-parliamentary meeting were approved with simple majority, with the votes of the Socialists, the votes of the four present European Parliament Members, and the Republican Fatmir Mediu. They also included the recommendation for the solution of property titles. The Democrats voted against, while the Parliament Members of the European Popular Parties were absent. The Macevei-Bumci debate continued.

Macovei to Bumçi: You are lying, to not have a resolution!

Bumçi to Macovei: What was done here is shameful. The others in this delegation did not vote for the resolution, except for the majority. That’s why there is no resolution.

The 17 points of the final resolution underline the importance of opening the EU accession negotiations, the implementation of the five key priorities, the justice reform, resolving the issue of people with criminal records in public posts, the role of civil society, measures agaisnt corruption, human traffic, asylum seekers, informal economy and regional relations.

Prepared by: Arta Tozaj

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