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Albania’s Rocky Road to the European Union

Dr. Mirela Bogdani and Professor John Loughlin

Published at: European Voice, Brussels. 9 December 2004.

Albania is a small country at the heart of the Western Balkans making the painful transition from one of the harshest and most Stalinist communist regimes to liberal democracy. Most Albanians, including its elites, regard themselves as European, as they assuredly are geographically, and see accession to the European Union as a desirable goal to help them make the transition successfully. They are, nevertheless, still a long way from meeting the famous Copenhagen criteria, which are the test as to whether they can be accepted into the club.

Despite its dreadful history of paranoid self-imposed international isolation and dictatorship, Albania got off to a good start in the early years of the transition. It had the great advantage of being already an independent state, while other countries such as the entities of the former Yugoslavia or Soviet Union had to invent this ab initio. Furthermore, despite its location in a region of Europe characterised by a mosaic of overlapping ethnic and religious communities, it itself has no major domestic inter-ethnic problems (it is relatively homogeneous ethnically, with only very small ethnic minorities). Even religiously there was never any real tension as religious issue was not important to Albanian national identity, and this reinforced by the abolition of religions during the communism, which forcefully turned Albania into an atheist country.

In the early years of transition, Albania seemed to make good economic progress and, in 1992, it signed a Co-operation and Trade Agreement with the then EC, the first country of South-East Europe to do so. There followed a period of relative prosperity. The new dream began to turn into a nightmare with the collapse of the pyramid savings schemes in 1997, the descent of the country into near civil war, and the slide into a kind of anarchy. Although order was restored, these incidents revealed some fundamental weaknesses in the Albanian political and administrative system.

The most important obstacle, among many other historic, economic and political legacies, to meeting the Copenhagen criteria and even simply making a successful transition to democracy, is the nature of the Albanian political system and the political class, which operates that system. Although on paper there is political pluralism, in reality there is a strong inheritance from the communist past, which is reflected in the shortcomings of all the parties, in particular in terms of the internal party democracy. The two main parties, the Socialist Party, which is currently in power, and the Democratic Party, which is the main party of opposition, dominate the political scene, even though surrounded by a number of other smaller satellite parties. Although they are allegedly on the left and right of the political spectrum, in practice, there is little difference in their ideologies, which are largely about obtaining and retaining power by any means. Despite complete failure in running the country, there have been allegations about politicians at the highest levels of politics and government implicated in corruption and maintaining ties with organised crime. When the media criticises the politicians and government for these activities, they are harassed and brought before the courts. Corruption and organised crime, whose levels are high, are the most problematic issues. Trafficking of human beings and drug smuggling are among the highest in Europe. Corruption is rife. The judiciary, police and customs officials, who should be tackling these problems, are themselves weak, corrupt and not independent.

The Albanian party system resembles what the Italians call the partitocrazia, that is, a system where the political parties colonise every aspect of public life – public administration, the judiciary, local and regional government, as well as economic activities. The result of this partitocrazia alla Albanese is a kind of paralysis with regard to the reforms that are necessary to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria. Although the political class, swear undying loyalty to the principles of European liberal democracy and integration, this remains rhetoric and little is done to ensure that they become reality.

Will Albania ever be ready to join the Union? Albania is part of the regional framework policy of the Western Balkans for joining the EU and opened the negotiations for a SAP in 2003, but there is little doubt that a lot of work still needs to be done to tackle all the current political, economic and social problems and reform the party system as the Italians did in the 1990s. But there are some positive aspects. The most advanced elements of civil society, knowledge elite, intellectuals, academics, NGOs, the young and educated people and the sizeable Albanian Diaspora, which constitutes a part of the “brain drain”, are aware of the problem and seek to change the situation. But they need the help of the international community to do so and Albania’s adherence to the western alliance and its support of the US in the fight against terrorism should not hold back the international community from putting pressure on the country to speed up its implementation of the political, administrative and judicial reforms that are necessary towards a successful transition and democratisation and to her accession to the EU.

Dr. Bogdani is a Research Associate at the School of European Studies, Cardiff University and Professor Loughlin is Professor of Politics in the same School, as well as Visiting Research Fellow, Merton College, Oxford. They are co-authors of “Albania and the European Union: European Integration and the Prospect of Accession” Dajti 2000, Tirana 2004.