Panariti: Immunity doesn’t block status

But after his visit in Brussels, the Foreign Minister Edmond Panariti – a Minister that comes from the Socialist Movement for Integration, the main ally of the ruling party – has given an opposite political stance to that of the Prime Minister.

“Everything comes to a mutual will between the political forces. The immunity issue is not part of the 12 EU criteria, but a challenge that the Albanian politics has set for itself and the basement for Albania’s war against corruption. The politics must keep passing laws and this must not be conditioned or hampered by anyone, but we must increase our efforts to reach an agreement”, Panariti declared.

The immunity issue has turned into a bone of contention for the Albanian politicians, and the contradictory declarations inside the ruling majority, if not casual, raise questions about the stances that the DP and SMI hold on specific issues.

From this view, besides the majority-opposition debates for how the immunity must be lifted, these declarations might open e new debate inside the majority.

If we refer to the previous declarations of the EU Commissioner for Enlargement, Stefan Fule – including those released when Panariti was in Brussels – the immunity lifting is a very important issue in these meetings, together with the fulfillment of the 12 criteria. But what is priority number 7 saying that is indirectly related with the immunity lifting?

“The government’s anti-corruption strategy must be implemented with effectiveness together with the action-plan, as well as removing any obstacle to the investigations against Judges, Ministers and MPs. A solid continuity of results must be reached with proactive investigations, by prosecuting and punishing corruption cases in all levels”.

The term “removing obstacles for investigations against Judges, Ministers and MPs” is strongly related with the immunity lifting.  For this reason, the high rank Brussels officials have paid the same attention to this issue, asking a solution from the Albanian political class and turning it into one of the assessing elements that will affect the result of Albania’s European test in October.

On the other hand, in Albania there is only one case when the justice has not been able to remove immunity from a high rank official in order to take them under investigation. This happened 18 years ago, when the Democratic Party Ministers of that time, Genc Ruli and Rexhep Uka were being accused. But the decision on that case was dictated by political circumstances.

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