EP, disappointed by Albanian politics

The incapability of the political class for dialogue, and the culture to not hear the speaker were the key words of the description made by the European MPs about their Albanian colleagues. Chairwoman Macovei said they will propose a draft-regulation for the procedure so that such meetings can be more productive in the future.

Some progress was reported on the key priorities in general, but the judiciary reform is considered limited and there is a lack of public trust towards the Prosecutor General. After the difficulties faced in Albania, and after the developments that come before the approval of the draft-resolution, the European Social Democrats and the right wing appeared more united in this discussion of the European Parliamentary Committee.

Macovei Macovei, Chairwoman of the Delegation SAPC PE- Albania: The political climate is very tense. It has deteriorated due to the recent scandals. We are referring to one month and a half ago. We met with the EU ambassador, who is from Croatia, and with ambassadors from other member countries. It was an important meeting, because we received for the first time objective information. They underlined some progress. In the fight against corruption we have had some cases that had started, but the problem is that there is a lack of trust at the Prosecutor General. I heard all ambassadors, including the EU ones, say that the people and even they don’t have a lot of trust on the Prosecutor General, who comes from the former regime. This was the perception of everyone about him, including ambassadors. There is some progress in the fight against corruption, which I would call limited. There is progress in the judiciary, limited again, and in the administration.

“The Stabilization-Association Committee EP-Albania has no rules for the procedure. I want to propose you a draft to approve, because I saw what happened without this regulation. No one respected the time. No one respected the speaker. When someone had the turn to speak, five or six people were talking at the same time”.

“In a normal democracy, in national parliaments or the European parliament as well, we appeal the executive – ministers, commissioners or anyone else, to report on an issue and then we make questions and even critics, if it is the case. But why there wasn’t only one? So far there was only one Minister, and now there were four? This was a long debate, although we made it clear and we thought that we resolved the problem before the meeting of SAPC. They started with this issue after the media arrived. It is important to say that we could not come out with recommendations, although the European Parliament tried hard. We drafted twice compromise amends during the one day and a half that we were there.  One or two of them were not accepted by everyone, and they didn’t want to approve the recommendations in general. In an informal way, everyone was saying that they knew this kind of conclusion and that we could not advise any recommendations, because they are used to it. That’s why I am saying that we need to make rules for the procedure, because for the moment we cannot approve the recommendations that are voted by the majority. They can be contested at any time. I would suggest rules that later should be approved at the Parliamentary Committee of Stabilization and Association with Albania.”

Susanne Melior, German MP: We need rules for the procedure and that we can implement for every stabilization-association delegation in the future. My impression was that the politicians in Albania are engaged to progress and implement them on terrain, but they must include civil society as well”.

Elly SCHLEIN, Vice Secretary of SAPC EP-Albania: As my colleague Macovei said, the major problem is the political instability, the total incapability for dialogue between the opposition and the majority, which risks a constant delegitimization of institutions, in a time when we need the citizens’ trust on these institutions. This political destabilization is translated in tension, as it happened during our meetings. We hope it will cool down in the next months. There is an important electoral meeting for the administrative elections that are held in June, and personally I believe that maybe after them the tones will be lower, so that they can have dialogue, which is necessary and irreplaceable to progress with the reforms. There has been some progress with the five priorities, not yet perfect. There is an ad-hoc commission for the judiciary reform, and a bigger inclusion is needed, for which we also insisted at the Commission of Venice. Not only judges, but the public administration also needs to be depoliticized. Professionalism and independence, for judges and public administration, is necessary for strong democratic institutions. They are trying to work well against corruption and organized crime, but more cooperation is needed between law enforcers. We had a very useful confrontation with the Albanian colleagues about this. I agree with colleague Melior for the need of having a bigger inclusion of the civil society, which might play an important monitoring role from views less involved in this political and very polarized debate. With this hope, I insist for a mechanism for the media so that it can be impartial and independent, because this is basic for its watchdog role in democracy”.

Victor Bostinaru, S&D, former vice Chairman of SAPC-EP-Albania:  Today’s reality is a result of past mistakes, of mistakes that the European Parliament has also done in the past. One of the lessons that we took is through the agreement of Mr.Kukan and Mr.Fleckenstein. The two main political groups should stay loyal to our commitment and not support any of the parties without condition. This is necessary, because they are used at calling the European Popular Party or the Social Democrats to promote their political agendas or ideas, while their information is not always credible are to be supported. First of all, verifications are necessary. Secondly, a unified voice is needed for the key issues in Albania. Knowing the role of Albania in the region, we must be very careful especially when we see declarations like that of Prime Minister Rama regarding Kosovo. On the other hand, we need to take lessons when we see both parties behave in Tirana. We must extract interesting conclusions for the political groups, for the ability and courage to distance from our partners to show that when both parties agree on the rules, the one who doesn’t respect those rules is the one that gets hit. There must be sanctions for this, because it is clear that there is an effort by both parties to escalate in Brussels things that can be treated only in Tirana and Albania. The story of the past would end here, with the Prime Minister, regardless of his name and his party,  would be embraced without conditions and the other party would be blamed as a result. The confronting climate would be more tense. We made it with Albania, we can make it with the FYROM too.

“Civil society representatives told us they didn’t like when each European group took the side of the political party they were affiliated with, and people do not understand this at all. They want to see the right stance, what has been good and what has been bad, regardless of who leads the country. The civil society should be involved and receive more support for helping the people, because there is a huge difference between Tirana and the rest of the country, which is very poor and has a lack of information that has nothing to do with the European accession. There is a huge difference”, Macovei declared.

Andrei Plenkogic, European Popular Party: This completes our impression that there is no doubt that the goal of the meeting is to conclude it with political signals. The three paragraphs in the three pages that have been discussed for Montenegro show the difference. Polarization between the opposition and the majority, not only in Albania, but also in Macedonia, is a bad signal and doesn’t bring the European dynamics in a useful form for us. We wish you luck. We noted the difficulties that you met and we hope that the next meeting will be more productive”.

“From the eight inter-parliamentary meetings held after 2009, when the Stabilization Association Agreement entered in effect, in only three of them the European Parliament and their Albanian colleagues have been able to approve joint conclusions with respective recommendations. The calendar foresees two meetings a year, and the next one will be held in Brussels, on November 9th.

Prepared by: Arta Tozaj

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