The former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Besnik Mustafaj, declared for
Top Channel that the Albanian diplomatic services suffer from small
budgets to fulfil their missions.
“The budget of an embassy is built very simply since there is a small number of payments. There’s the rent, the wages, their insurances, but the mobility is also very necessary. They need paid gas for the Ambassador’s car, and also the quality of representation, which the ambassador uses in meetings. The budget of an embassy should be planned by keeping in mind what the embassy needs. Last week I was in Vienna, in the fifth global forum for the Alliance of Civilizations, and our ambassador complained about the lack of very basic elements, even the budget”, Mustafaj declared.
Mustafaj thinks that the lobbying companies, Patton Boggs and Podesta, which receive 1.5 million USD by the government, cannot replace the role of the US Embassy in Washington.
“I would never give priority to a lobbying agency before an embassy which has a mandate. This includes the quality of diplomats that are sent to Washington and not the fact that the lobbying agency can do the embassy’s work. They do not do the embassy’s work. The embassy can do much more, because it is better motivated. They’d do 90% of the work that the lobbying agency does”, Mustafaj underlined.
Besnik Mustafaj explains why our embassy in Washington takes a special importance.
“The government program of 2005 where I planned the foreign policy defines the relations with the USA as strategic. When these relations are strategic, the Embassy should belong to the first category and have a special importance. The strategic relations with an ally and partner such as USA cannot be built only through the US Embassy to Tirana, but also through the Albanian one in Washington”, Mustafaj declared.
Top Channel
