Are #Albania's opposition Democrats trying to block EU accession?

Albania’s opposition Democratic Party, or possibly a faction within it, seems to be doing everything possible to obstruct the Balkan nation’s longed-for accession to the European Union – writes Doug Henderson (UK Labour MP from 1987 to 2010, Minister for Europe in Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government).

The right-wing party’s puzzling opposition early this year to an EU-mandated reform of the justice system was just the beginning. That was accompanied by a boycott of the Albanian parliament and subsequently by a threat to boycott a national election. Diplomatic interventions by both EU and US authorities eventually forced the DP to fall in line and run in the election, which was won comfortably by the incumbent Socialist Party.

But now the Democrats have initiated a propaganda campaign depicting their nation as drugs-riddled and mafia-controlled.

Let’s be clear about this. Albania has had a drugs problem for many years. It began in the chaos which followed the fall of the Communist dictatorship 27 years ago. In the midst of economic collapse, cannabis became the cash crop of choice. Under successive governments, both DP and SP, cannabis cultivation spread, and along with it, organised crime.

“In the early years, it wasn’t even illegal,” Prime Minister Edi Rama said recently in a remarkably candid personal letter addressed to all EU leaders. “Later, police, prosecutors and judges could be easily bought off. There was political protection from the highest levels of government.”

Rama campaigned against the grip the drugs traffickers had on government and, in 2013, the SP took power. One of the first steps the new government took was a major police raid on the southern village of Lazarat which, for nearly a decade, had been known as the “cannabis capital of Europe”. Production with a street value estimated at €4.5 billion/year was brought to a halt.

Extraordinarily, up to that point, Lazarat had been a “no-go” area for state police. This was reported to be on the instructions of Rama’s immediate predecessor as prime minister, Democratic Party leader Sali Berisha, a continuing power within the DP. In 2014 he acknowledged to local media that non-intervention in Lazarat had been his own personal “political decision.”

“There is much left to do,” Prime Minister Rama wrote to the EU leaders. “Cannabis production gave rise to trade routes, transport equipment and personnel to enable smuggling and trans-shipment from international sources. We are committed to working with all our international partners to eliminate this too.”

Yet the DP’s current leader, Lulzim Basha, is now blaming Rama for everything. In recent weeks, just as Italy’s financial police announced that their regular aerial surveillance showed that cannabis cultivation in Albania had been all but wiped out, Basha was telling interviewers the situation had grown worse under the Rama government. Furthermore, around the time the government announced a major new international operation to pursue criminal leaders wherever they were hiding, Basha told a Newsweek interviewer that the government “lacks any commitment to intervene.”

The battle between the two main parties continues.  Having shielded the ‘cannabis capital’ from law enforcement while Mr Basha’s party was in power they recently attempted to block a major reform of the justice system – involving the removal of corrupt judges and proscecutors.

In 2013, just before the Rama government first came to power, the European Commission set five conditions which needed to be met before negotiations for Albania’s EU accession could begin: administrative reform, enhanced protection of human rights, progress in the battle against corruption, reform of the judiciary and robust measures against organised crime.

There have been huge advances on all these points. But on the last three, there has been a remarkable degree of resistance from the Basha-led opposition.

By putting obstacles in the way of tough action against some of the essential reforms the democratic Party put at risk Albania’s accession pathway to EU Membership.

Yet polls show 80% of Albanians support their country joining the EU.  Mr Basha’s party therefore position themselves in direct opposition to the views of the people of their nation.

Doug Henderson, a UK Labour MP from 1987 to 2010, was Minister for Europe in Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government.

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