Albania between elections and european integration

Elections in Albania were held last 25^th April and ended with the victory of the socialist Edi Rama. His future challenge will be to enter the European Union

Last 25^th April, presidential elections were held in Albania and victory was awarded to the Socialist Party of Prime Minister Edi Rama with 50.5% of the votes and a total of 75 seats out of 140. The opposition, formed by the Democratic Party and the Movement for Socialist Integration, finished the race with  48.5%.  Rama won for the third consecutive time, a record since the existence of pluralism in the former socialist Republic, and it is set to form a large majority in the Parliament. The elections took place in a mostly peaceful manner, despite the killing of an opponent during the last week of the electoral campaign. However, the problem of the votes of Albanians living abroad remains unresolved, as the Parliament has not been able to promulgate a law that would guarantee the vote to those eligible, non-resident citizens.

Albania’s elections also resonated internationally; the OSCE, which led the international team of observers, stated that the election campaign was “inclusive and lively” but also that “widespread vote-buying practices remain a serious problem in Albania, and this has a negative impact on the perception of the general public and trust in the electoral process.” A very similar reaction came from the US and the European Union ambassadors, who visited an election centre in Tirana and called for “fairness” in the counting.

In his first speech as the re-elected Prime Minister, Rama again renewed his desire to create a political moment that is conciliatory with the challenges facing the country, especially after the earthquake that rocked the country in 2019, but also in light of pandemic-related difficulties that continue to cause concern.

During the election campaign, Rama had asked for time to complete the infrastructure projects interrupted by the pandemic and to continue to rebuild the thousands of homes destroyed by the powerful earthquake at the end of 2019. Now that he again has a large parliamentary majority he will be able to complete such promises. In addition, Rama will be able to conclude the vaccination campaign that should allow the immunization, by the end of May, 500 thousand of total Albanian population of 2.8 million. As such, he will succeed in reviving the tourism industry, which has been hit hard by the health crisis.

Tirana calls Brussels: what happens now?

During Rama’s third mandate, the possibility of Albania joining the European Union is becoming increasingly concrete.

Brussels, which had granted candidate status in 2014, gave the green light to begin negotiations for Albania’s accession and everyone in the country was committed to implementing the necessary reforms, starting with that of the judicial system and the fight against organized crime. Despite this, the country continues to have a high rate of corruption, of which Rama himself is accused by the opposition.

During his last mandate, the Prime Minister had repeatedly stated that the European Union was the point of arrival for Albania, saying  during a 2018 session of the European Parliament that, ” Europe for [Albania] is a religion and our presence can make it stronger.” He repeated these words after his victory in the last presidential elections.

Despite this, however, Tirana’s requests to set a date to initiate talks for integration into the EU have met with continual refusals from Brussels, which does not consider the economic, political and anti-corruption progress made by the Balkan country to be sufficient. Moreover, the current state of Albanian GDP is not enough for Brussels’ demands.

Albania’s chances of entering Europe will lie in the ability of the new government to implement policies to reform the judicial and economic system. In the meantime, Brussels will keep negotiations on stand-by.