Judicial corruption has plagued post-communist Albania, hampering its democratic processes. Parliament unanimously approved a justice system reform last year to ensure that judges and prosecutors are independent from politics, and to root out bribery.

But implementation of the reform has been delayed after two judges’ associations complained about its implications at the Constitutional Court.

A statement Tuesday from the EU delegation in Tirana said that “vetting of judges and prosecutors … needs to start.”

A day earlier the United States embassy voiced concern “about attempts to weaken the reform to protect corrupt judges and prosecutors.”

Source/ The Associated Press.

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Last year, Kosovar police arrested 19 people – including the nine charged on Wednesday – on suspicion that they had links with the Islamic State militant group and were planning attacks in Kosovo and neighboring Albania.

At the time, fearing such attacks, Albanian authorities moved the Nov. 12 qualifier to a venue near the capital Tirana from a stadium in the northern town of Shkoder.

The state prosecutor said some of the nine men charged were in contact with Lavdrim Muhaxheri, a prominent Islamic State member and the self-declared \”commander of Albanians in Syria and Iraq\” from whom they received orders to attack. Police and family members told Reuters last week that Muhaxheri has been killed in Syria.

The group was also planning to launch attacks inside Kosovo against local and international institutions and buy weapons with money received from Muhaxheri, the prosecutor said.

NATO has around 4,500 soldiers in Kosovo helping to keep a fragile peace. The European Union and the United Nations also have security and diplomatic missions in Kosovo.

The prosecution said the defendants took orders from Muhaxheri and planned to attack and destabilize \”the countries in the Balkans and then create their territory of the Islamic State\”.

One of the defendants had kept in his basement 283 grams of self-made triacetone triperoxide (TATP) explosives. The same explosive was used in attacks in Paris and Brussels and was found in a series of foiled bombings in Europe since 2007.

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At a news conference on Wednesday, an emotional De Biasi announced he would leave immediately and read out a letter in which he said he \”thought long and hard\” about his decision but is leaving for \”the good and growth of our team.\”

De Biasi, who turns 61 on Friday, has been in charge of Albania for the past six years and obtained Albanian citizenship in 2015. He achieved history with the team by leading it to Euro 2016, where it finished third in its group after beating Romania and losing to Switzerland and France.

Albania is third in its qualification group for the 2018 World Cup, seven points below Spain and Italy, with four matches remaining.

Source; Associated Press

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This should become clear very soon. After an election later this month in Albania, and perhaps during an annual Western Balkans summit, scheduled for Trieste in July, there will almost certainly be a demand that accession negotiations with Tirana should begin this year.

It is not inevitable, but my guess is that the EU’s response will be positive, with regard at least to negotiations. I judge this based on the resources Brussels has committed to keeping all six of the Balkan applicants on the path to membership and to assisting whenever difficulties have arisen, as they have done most recently in Macedonia and Albania.

The Albanian case is instructive. For three months, the conservative Democratic Party occupied a huge tent outside the prime minister’s office in Tirana, boycotting the parliament, haranguing the government and demanding the resignation of prime minister Edi Rama of the Socialist party.

It was never clear why what was said in increasingly bombastic language inside the tent could not have been said in parliament. But it was perfectly clear that, by leaving their parliamentary seats vacant, the Democrats were blocking a critical reform of the judicial system, the last remaining big institutional reform required before negotiations could begin for Albania’s EU accession.

The parliamentary boycott led to the next logical, albeit completely irrational, step, a boycott of parliamentary elections. The DP appeared determined to deprive the next government of legitimacy, setting the stage for — what exactly? Repeatedly in rabble-rousing speeches to his supporters the DP leader declared a “New Republic”, suggesting revolutionary intent.

Brussels sprang into action. Foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and lead enlargement negotiator Christian Danielsson led delegations to speak with the party leaders. MEPs were dispatched to mediate. Ultimately a settlement was reached. In the face of the DP’s flurry of demands, including direct participation in government through DP-appointed ministers, Mr Rama had just one key requirement. He insisted on judicial reform proceeding before the election. Without that, he said, EU talks could not proceed. The Democrats backed down.

In other words, Mr Rama was prepared to place everything on the table except EU accession. It is a measure of his strategic approach that he regarded that, not temporary power-sharing, as a deal breaker.

Mr Rama is emerging as one of the most sophisticated political leaders in Europe. An internationally acclaimed artist, he is also a former professional basketball player. Multilingual, he lived for a time in Paris where he gained his first recognition as an artist. In contrast to many politicians, Mr Rama does not peddle slogans.

Ideologically, he is of the centre-left — a “third way” social democrat, like Britain’s Tony Blair or possibly France’s new president Emmanuel Macron. A stout pro-European and Atlanticist, he has been outspoken in his warnings about Russian interventions in his own region and elsewhere.

Mr Rama views EU membership as the key to resolving Balkan instability and discord. He has urged Brussels to accelerate the process and bring the region in as swiftly as possible, partly to fend off current moves by Russia to extend its influence.

My sense, as a longstanding observer of the Balkan scene and former UN special representative in neighbouring Kosovo, is that there is strong sympathy for this view in Brussels, despite much-publicised reluctance.

Formally opening the negotiations does not necessarily mean a swift or inevitable conclusion, as witness the Turkish situation. But the EU needs to keep hopes alive among candidate nations if it wishes to retain its influence.

And just at the moment, with particularly EU-friendly leaders in Albania, Serbia and Macedonia, with Zoran Zaev newly installed as prime minister, there is a cadre of reformers available to lead the way.

Bernard Kouchner is a former French minister for foreign and European affairs, co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières and founder of Médecins du Monde.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2017. All rights reserved.

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The June 11 election, the third vote since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, was triggered about a year earlier than scheduled after Prime Minister Isa Mustafa’s government lost a no-confidence vote in parliament.

Many of Kosovo\’s 1.8 million inhabitants blame politicians from all sides for a stubbornly high unemployment rate that hovers around one-third of the workforce despite solid economic expansion of about 4 percent annually in one of the poorest countries in Europe.

Other key priorities the next government faces include establishing better control over privatization and creating a functioning war crimes court and prosecution office, which would start the process of sidelining wartime leaders from political and public life.

Yet the biggest issues surrounding the vote are a pair of agreements signed in 2015: one setting the border with Montenegro and another with Serbia that increases powers held by ethnic Serbs in Kosovo.

Those issues have helped stalled reforms in the legislature and angered the electorate in a country where about one-third of the population is under the age of 15.

“For more than a year we didn\’t have a functional government, and now I don’t trust them,” said Islam Fehmiu, a retiree from the capital, Pristina.

“Parliament couldn\’t finish its sessions. I have very low hopes. The preelection coalitions are looking out only for their own interests and I absolutely think they won’t solve ongoing issues such as border demarcation with Montenegro,” Fehmiu added.

After casting her ballot in Pristina, the president of the Central Election Commission, Valdete Daka, called on citizens to use their right to vote and urged political party monitors \”not to misuse their position.\”

\”We have to show the world that we know how to organize the elections,\” Daka said

Nearly 30,000 domestic and international observes will overlook the voting process. Daka said the OSCE Mission in Kosovo had dispatched around 200 adviseors to polling stations in the Serb-dominated northern part of Kosovo. A total of 19 parties, five coalitions, and backers of two citizens’ initiatives are running in the election. Of the 120 seats in parliament, 20 are reserved for ethnic Serbs and other minorities.

Opinion polls show two coalitions — the Self-Determination Movement and a coalition built around the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) — are likely to top the polls, once again setting up potentially tricky talks on forming a government.

In 2014, a six-month stalemate between the two largest parties ensued until they formed a grand coalition that was considered a failure as the country stagnated.

With the number of undecided voters at about 30 percent, last-minute decisions by those voters and from the country’s diaspora will have the major say in determining the next government for the four-year term.

“Hopefully, they can form a government faster than the last time and they can work at addressing all the issues which are relevant for a European perspective and to get a credible track record on this,” EU Commissioner for Enlargement Johannes Hahn told RFE/RL in Brussels.

While there have been some rumblings of electoral dirty tricks, the campaign has been devoid of any major scandals or incidents, in a marked departure from other recent elections in the Balkans.

When Mustafa’s government collapsed, concern swelled that the kind of political upheaval that dotted the region — fueled by nationalist sentiment that sparked fears of an outbreak of violence — would engulf Kosovo, which as Europe’s newest country has struggled to establish a stable democracy.

Those tensions were brought up again on June 9 when former Finance Minister Avdullah Hoti, a candidate for prime minister from the LDK, told The Telegraph newspaper that if the country’s relationship with its allies deteriorates, \”it will be much easier for those who wish to destabilize the region.\”

\”The Western Balkans has been compared in the past, not inaccurately, to a powder keg — a spark anywhere could harm us all,\” said Hoti, a 42-year-old economist who has been nicknamed \”Kosovo’s Macron.\”

Kosovo broke with Serbia in 1999 after NATO bombing halted a campaign of ethnic cleansing directed against ethnic Albanians by Serbian forces trying to stamp out a two-year insurgency. Its independence has been recognized by more than 100 countries, including Western powers, but not by Serbia, Russia, or several EU members including Spain.

Source: Radio Free Europe

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The new government will have to tackle high unemployment, improve the economy and develop better relations with its neighbours.
Opinion polls suggest Mr Mustafa\’s bloc is trailing a coalition led by a former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj.
A victory for Mr Haradinaj would complicate relations with Serbia.
It has issued an international arrest warrant for him for alleged war crimes.

He served as a commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army during the war with Serbia in 1998 and 1999. Serbia has repeatedly warned it will defend \”every inch\” of what it claims as its territory in neighbouring Kosovo.
Historically a province of Serbia, Kosovo declared independence in 2008. It is recognised by the US and most EU countries but not by Serbia or its ally Russia.
About 1.9 million Kosovars are registered to vote in the third vote since independence. Nearly half a million voters live abroad.
Kosovo profile
New court to try suspects of war crimes committed in Kosovo (video)
One of the top priorities for any new government will be to reduce unemployment, which is running at 30%, and lower tensions with Serbia, a pre-condition for both countries before they can join the European Union. The West believes that the incorporation of Western Balkan countries in the EU is the most effective way of stabilising a region blighted by war throughout the 1990s.Kosovo has had a constant Nato peacekeeping force since 1999.
Kosovo and Serbia – key recent dates
1991 – Start of the violent break-up of Yugoslavia
1996 – Rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) steps up attacks on Serbian authorities in Kosovo – met with a Serbian crackdown
1999 – Nato bombs Serbian targets – Yugoslav and Serbian forces respond with ethnic cleansing against Kosovo Albanians but withdraw from Kosovo after a peace agreement
2008 – Kosovo unilaterally declares independence.

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The National Coastline Agency on Thursday opened an exhibition of sketches made by Lear during an 1848 visit to Albania.

Agency head Auron Tare said they were seeking to revitalize the Via Egnatia, constructed by the Romans in the 2nd century B.C. The ancient route crosses territory that is now part of Albania, Macedonia, Greece and European Turkey.

“Lear was the last of the big names to travel along the Via Egnatia to see the influence of Albania dating back to ancient times,” said Tare. Lear’s sketches are preserved at Harvard University’s Houghton Library of rare works.

They depict scenes Lear witnessed in towns such as Manastir and Ohrid in Macedonia, or Elbasan and Tirana, 72 years before it became Albania’s capital. They also show central and eastern Albania’s rugged mountains and form an important record of folk costumes worn at the time in Albania.

Abaz Hado, a painter and art manager, said Lear’s works are of “documentary and artistic value, giving views of the period that have since been transformed or no longer exist. From an artistic point of view, they present clear lines and accurate depictions of the 19th-century way of life.”

Promoting tourism from the coastline to the mountains has been a top priority of post-communist Albania’s governments.

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In the part of the square they placed a stone from every part of the Albanian lands, including the Greek town of Filiates naming it “a part of the enslaved Chameria“.
Albanian Chams believe that the land they call their own was forcibly taken from them by the Greeks of Epirus and deny them the rights of ethnic minorities. They also claim that Greece’s Thesprotia region is in fact Cham land and should be returned to Albania.

Acording to Epiruspost.gr, Deputy Mayor of Tirana Arbjan Mazniku said that the stone from Filiates is put in the square for symbolic reasons and that the square represents all Abanians.

“This is the square of all Albanians, wherever they are, and all Albanian groups are represented in this square. It is our square and we have judged that this is right. Of course there is a stone from Chameria, a stone from Filiates,” the deputy mayor said./Epiruspost.gr/

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Lavdrim Muhaxheri died in the Middle East, but it was not clear in which country or when, they told Reuters.

A video posted on the internet in 2014 showed Muhaxheri beheading a young man in Iraq accused by IS of spying for the Iraqi government.Another video showed him killing another person with a rocket-propelled grenade.A police official, who declined to be named, told Reuters that he had been killed, but gave no other details.

Confirming his death, an uncle of Muhaxheri asked a Reuters reporter: “Is everyone happy now?”

Around 300 Kosovars have gone to fight with the Islamic State and more than 50 have been killed, Kosovo officials say. About 120 more are estimated to have left from Albania itself and about 100 from Macedonia’s Albanian minority.

Kosovo has not seen any militant attacks on its home turf, but at least 200 people have been detained or investigated for alleged Islamic State-related offenses.Most of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority are nominally Muslim but overwhelmingly secular. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 with the backing of the West.

In 2015, it adopted a law introducing jail sentences of up to 15 years for anyone found guilty of fighting in wars abroad.

Source: New York Post

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