CEZ, another conflict paid by tax payers

Another similar conflict started in September 2003, when the then Socialist government, led by Fatos Nano, signed an agreement with the American “General Electric” for the construction of the Tirana-Durres railway, known as “the electric train”.

The agreement had a 70 million EUR value, planned by Italian laws. One article of it said that in case of conflict, the solution would be found at Italian courts.

And that happened right after 2005, when the Democratic Party rejected the agreement and forced the American company to file a complaint at the arbitrage court.

In 2007, a court in Rome decided that Albania should pay 20 million EUR from the budget for breaking this agreement.

This was followed by other conflicts between the government and foreign companies, such as “Petrolifera”, an agreement signed by the Nano government for the construction of a maritime terminal for depositing oil and its sub-products in the Vlore bay.

After the agreement was signed, the former Commission of Property Return decided to return part of that territory to former owners. The company filed a lawsuit and in 2007 the Albanian government changed the agreement in favor of the company, by removing some of their obligations.

The Democratic Party government had another conflict with “Petrolifera”, this time for a conflict that was related to the reimbursement of VAT, and a government decision for placing fiscal cases in the initial point of the terminal.

The government threatened with another lawsuit and a few months ago, the new SP government accepted to resolve the situation by giving 70 hectares of land to the Petrolifera for 3 million EUR.

This with CEZ is the most recent one, with the Albanian citizens being obliged to pay millions of EUR for irresponsible and corrupted actions of government officials. This arbitrage story has resulted very painful for the citizens of Albania, a country with an already poor economy.

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