Albania in twenty years – The 1990 Agenda Is Still Unfinished
By Edlira Majko
You were one of the co-organizer together with the Albanian Institute for International Studies of the international conference “Twenty Years After: Rethinking Democracy and State in Albania”. What are your impressions from the conference and the topics covered in it?
The German Southeast Europe Association (SOG) I am working for was intensively dealing with Albanian issues and affairs in recent years, and the Albanian Institute for International Studies as well as the Albanian Media Institute have been our partners for long time already. In preparation of the conference “Twenty Years AfterŢ which we were co-organizing with our Albanian partners and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, we experienced an amazing interest in participation by almost all excellent experts on Albania we have invited. This clearly underlines that Albania is still on the agenda of academics, journalists and Balkan experts. To my opinion, the conference in Tirana succeeded in recalling and analyzing the experiences which Albania as well as its society had to go through during the last two decades. Several participants brought back the memories on brave “agents of change”, like Gramoz Pashko, who were ready to stand up and to oppose the regime. Additionally, we have had a vivid and intensive debate on lessons to be drawn for the future due to the outstanding expertise which has gathered for the conference.
How would you assess these two decades of Albania’s transformation? How has Albania changed in these 20 years?
As Miranda Vickers has put it during the conference: “Albania stepped out of the dark into the world”. It is a matter of fact that because of the isolation Albania was different from other transition countries. In retrospective one can identify three core events that have had and still have an influence on the developments: first, the fall of communism and the subsequent necessity of modern state-building almost from scratch; second, the collapse of the pyramid scheme 1997 which inter alia caused a severe blow in terms of credibility in the transition process, and finally the Kosovo crisis in 1999 where Albania has proven stability and sense of responsibility. Compared to the 1990s Albania has changed a lot and it is much more consolidated in its state functions. An example to illustrate the dynamics of transformation in Albania is the extremely underdeveloped communication infrastructure twenty years ago which has fundamentally changed and is now focusing to achieve a knowledge based society where all citizens benefit from the telecommunications and IT.
However, much remains to be done and to cope with. One of the core problems deriving from the fall of communism and the opening of the country to the outside world is the huge brain drain, the enormous emigration and subsequently the lack of a capable elite to carry on the process. In fact, no other country in transition was so deeply affected by emigration to abroad as well as by internal migration which dramatically has changed urban and rural areas. Unregulated internal migration resulted in an urban chaos. The high density of unregulated constructions in Tirana and Durr쳠also reflects the huge environmental problems Albania has to urgently deal with. It doesn’t rebound to Albania’s advantage that it holds the record of the most polluted country in Europe. And finally, much remains to be done to address the deep-routed patriarchal attitudes within the society which are even leading to violence.
Can we say for sure that the Albanian transition, meaning the replacement of the totalitarian state regime with a democratic state and the transformation of a centralized economy with a market economy, has already ended?
The challenges were huge: from a one-party to a multi-party system, from communism to democracy and market economy. The agenda was laid out in 1990 but is still an unfinished business. The division of power and the set-up of transparent, efficient and accountable functioning institutions have not reached a satisfactory and sustainable state of play yet. Human and administrative capacity building is severely hampered by the specific characteristic of the Albanian transformation with the former communist elite as the main carriers of the transformation process. It is worrying, that since 1990 Albania is facing enormous problems in education with a persistence of structural gaps in the education sector. An additional important point is that Albania is the last country in Europe to start dealing with its communist past. In that sense, transition is not over but still in process.
Moreover: Unfortunately, freedom of the media is far from being achieved. Governmental pressure on the media is a matter of concern and the principles of a rule-of-law state are frequently disregarded. Albania’s political landscape is up until now highly affected by the polarization and the rivalry between the two main political parties. Mutual blockade and distrust are common while necessary reforms and consequent decisions are required. Finally, Albania’s people are the victims of that stalemate Albania is going through. Political parties mostly lack internal democracy and financial transparency, and the words “compromise / consensus” seem to be not existing in the daily political life. This also applies for the parliament. Petra Bl崳-Rafajlovski, former Vice-President of the German Bundestag and member of our board, is currently advising the Albanian parliament as an expert for the OSCE mission. I sincerely hope that she can convince her interlocutors that the parliament is an – if not to say the – essential part of decision making processes in a democratic system and that the elected representatives do have a crucial share on how the country will develop. Democratization is a long lasting and continuously ongoing process which needs first of all a clear political will, strategic reforms and instead of lip services concrete implementation measures. In that sense, transition has not ended so far.
As concerns the economy, I may say, that despite some progress in privatization, and, despite the fact that Albania is a market economy, serious problems persist. Unemployment is very high and grey economic activities are remarkable intensive. Political and financial corruption are widespread and an obstacle for further positive developments. Economic growth has been largely generated by foreign capital and remittances. Up to now approximately one third of the population is employed in the agricultural sector. Economic activities are hampered by a generally weak infrastructure. In sum, yes, much has been achieved, but a lot remains to be done.
What is your opinion of Albania’s current situation of democracy?
All democratic elections prior to 2009 were characterized by irregularities and Albania has still problems in conducting elections. We observe a “winner takes it all” attitude, a tendency to meritocracy instead of democracy and a widespread clientelistic behavior of the political elite. The political crisis in Albania 2009/2010 added to some stereotypes vis-ஶis Albania, as Janusz Bugajski has put it during the conference, i.e. that Albania is mysterious, rebellious and unreliable in its internal political context. Albania has applied for EU membership and the Copenhagen criteria have to be fulfilled. Deficiencies in the rule of law, freedom of media, the relationship between the government and the opposition are undermining the development of democracy and Albania and its people have to decide which kind of democracy the country would like to achieve.
Can you draw a balance sheet of Albania’s main achievements and failures in these past 20 years?
In order not to repeat what has been mentioned already, let me just address some positive and negative aspects of the developments. On the achievement’s side, it is to emphasize that Albania is the only western Balkan country which did not experience negative economic growth during the global economic and financial crisis. Moreover, Albania was one of those rare countries which could even achieve positive economic growth in 2009. Secondly, the country succeeded in prevailing basic stability and security in spite of very critical events like the 1997 pyramid collapse and the 1999 influx of refugees from Kosovo, when Albania has claimed maturity. Albania has proven to be an anchor of stability in the region and has recently started to develop normal interstate relations even with Serbia – despite the disagreement on Kosovo’s independence. Finally, it will be a great achievement for the Albanian citizens, if the country would meet the requirements for visa-liberalization soon.
On the other side of the coin, we notice that confidence and trust in the political institutions of the people is far from being satisfying. Opinion polls indicate that the population is more and more disillusioned with the political process. Robert Pichler warned during the conference that the high dependency on remittances does not provide social security – an important aspect which the decision makers in Albania have to carefully look at. Furthermore, judiciary independence is a matter of concern and a major stumbling block for attracting foreign direct investment and to meet democratic standards as required for EU membership. And as a final point, the transfer of power to local stakeholders and the rearrangement of vertical and horizontal power structures are far from being accomplished. Decentralization is ongoing with only limited progress and decision-making remains in the hands of a couple of influential political figures.
How do you assess Albania’s foreign policy and international relations?
In short: Albania managed to exit isolation and to enter into integration. Albania became a reliable partner to the West in terms of its foreign and security policy. It is member of the UN, WTO, CEFTA, BSEC, OSCE, since April 2009 of NATO and has applied for EU membership. With the Euro-Atlantic integration on the track, Albania gains more and more weight in international relations. Consequently, Albania pays considerable attention to its regional links, to its positive and perspective constructive role within the western Balkans.
Johanna Deimel is Deputy Director of the Southeast Europe Association (S
