Albania the torn State
Mr Henze, you are one of the best foreign experts on the Balkans and a friend of Albania. Briefly to the party leader Basha what is there between you two?
You'll have to ask the DP leader, Autocrat Basha. What is irritating is that he blocked me on Twitter on 09 October 2021. It cannot be ruled out that he is also accusing us Germans, or me, of anti-Americanism, as he did to Berisha and the members of the DP. Editor's note: Mr Henze laughs.
No, let's be serious, the man is completely out of his depth and seems to have significant problems with the fact that we have pointed out to him that his actions in recent weeks are not in accordance with the law, do not fit in with Europe and that we also have a problem with the obscure court case in Albania and his activities in the USA. We have looked at the files from the USA and Albania and we have also looked at information from the security services. The whole process is adventurous.
That he thinks he can avoid the discourse by blocking the DP's closest friends and close friends of the Albanian nation on Twitter unfortunately shows us an infantile behaviour pattern of Mr. Basha.
I assume that there is an agreement between the autocrat Rama and the autocrat Basha, for mutual benefit. The members of the parties are only used as legitimacy - plateau, a real drama for democracy.
Basha seems to be playing a big game and is now using the old tactics of accusing the government of corruption, quoting sometimes strange economic figures and, as he has done for the last nine years, discussing the PPP instead of discussing concepts and goals, which would be the task of an opposition in a country that is in an existential emergency.
However, this is an old role play of Rama and Basha, but in the background there are other deals going on. But the public is supposed to think that discussions are taking place.
But what is also problematic is that in parallel he is accusing the entire following in the party public of anti-Americanism, absurd.
I have rarely seen such a proud nation and DP members who stand so closely by the side of the USA and Europe. As for Berisha, I can only recommend calling Bush Jr., who will be surprised when the calls tell him that Mr Berisha is anti-American.
What is the problem?
In fact there are several problems, the central issue in the DP is the anti-democratic behaviour of Basha.
Which are?
In Europe we expect a party leader of a Democratic Party in Albania to abide by the constitution and party laws, unfortunately that is not the case here with Basha's actions, repeatedly. Mr Basha does not have the authority in his role as party leader to expel an elected member of parliament, in this case Sali Berisha, from the parliamentary group. That is an original matter for the parliamentary group. In addition, of course, it is also a complementary matter for the party bodies.
If something like this had happened in Europe, the party leader would have apologised for his attempt to deliberately break the law and would have resigned from his post within 24 hours and a date would have been set for the election of a new leader. Unfortunately, he did not do this, thereby depriving himself of any legitimacy to appear as a democrat.
A democrat and Albanian patriot respects the constitution, the party laws and also the dignity of his party colleagues.
The DP stood for election on 25 April 2021 with a homogeneous list, Mr. Berisha is on the list and has thus been elected by the sovereign as a member of the DP, in this respect he is also a born member of the DP parliamentary group, he cannot be excluded just like that.
The formation of a parliamentary group is based on the exercise of the free mandate guaranteed to each individual MP, not on the party. This is also the case in Albania.
This includes the right to form a parliamentary group with other MPs and to remain together with them, as well as the right of the other members of the parliamentary group to exclude an individual MP from their ranks.
The right of status of the Albanian MP and the resulting right to form a parliamentary group are thus the reason and the limit of the decision of the parliamentary group on the exclusion of one of its members.
The constitutionally protected interests of the parliamentary group and its function for the effective running of parliament result in a constitutional limit for the rights of the individual MPs.
Accordingly, the exclusion of a parliamentary group presupposes a procedure that satisfies the minimum requirements of the rule of law and a decision by the parliamentary group assembly of the DP in the Albanian parliament that is free of arbitrariness. This is not a matter for the DP as a party, it is a matter of the constitutional status of the parliamentary mandate and it is not a matter for a party leader and especially not a matter for a US ambassador.
Therefore, the question is whether the DP leader, as DP leader, took the decision, or as a caucus leader. If he made the exclusion decision as party leader, the decision would be highly illegal.
If he took the decision as leader of the parliamentary group, although I don't know whether he was already elected as leader of the parliamentary group, then the decision would also be unlawful, because the decision requires a majority decision of the entire parliamentary group.
So, do I understand you correctly, the decision of the Chairman DP to exclude MP Berisha is unlawful.
In fact ,the decision is grossly flawed and does not show the minimum rule of law in Mr. Basha's case. I am very irritated. Such a procedure does not suit a party that is a member of the European People's Parties. No party leader in Europe would behave like this.
It shows that he does not understand what the rule of law, enshrined in the Albanian state constitution, means, namely the supremacy and subordination of politics to the constitution. The basic principle of a parliamentary republic.
Corruption is a major issue in the Balkans and the people of Albania are repeatedly accused of being corrupt, especially by the international community.
Well, indeed, if we look at the criticism, also at the behaviour of some diplomats, we can get the impression: all people are corrupt in Albania, indeed, also the language of some diplomats is surprising.
How is this to be understood?
Well, I sometimes have the impression, especially when I listen to the US ambassador, that she treats the Albanian population as a nation that is not of age and that first needs to be educated. Rama, by the way, is taking a similar approach.
What is your problem with the US ambassador in Tirana?
We don't have a problem. Among friends, there must also be the possibility of discussion, everyone makes mistakes once in a while, and we can only move forward in our developments if we talk about them.
It is her first job as ambassador. She is relatively inexperienced and unfortunately makes too many mistakes. She does not respect international law and does not keep her distance from the ruling corrupt oligarchy, especially the mayor in Tirana.
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She shows many nice pictures on her Twitter account, diving, celebrating, and at the same time the people are starving, the youth is emigrating, corruption and the cocaine trade is increasing.
Our friends in the USA are also concerned about her involvement.
Unfortunately, something happens here that always happens to US Americans, they do not understand the culture and structure of the country. There are too many players in the Balkans, a policy with a sense of proportion is needed. Unfortunately, they don't do that, in contrast to the German, French and English ambassadors who do a very good job.
I will give them an example. The US ambassador euphorically praises the establishment of an anti-corruption authority, communicates almost daily about this authority. It seems as if she is running this authority. But, what happens? The SPAK was established in breach of the Albanian constitution, there is no constitutional legitimacy, a real violation of the separation of powers. first mistake.
The SPAK operates in a legal vacuum, since 2018 the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court have been de facto dysfunctional in Albania and will be so for years to come. An SPAK cannot function without the rule of law, second mistake.
Allow me to conclude with another remark: the Rama government instructs the SPAK or KLSH (the unit that controls the state, also known as Kontrolli i Larte i Shtetit) to examine the state tender documents in advance so that they can say that everything is in order, or impose minimum penalties on the companies, and that's it. We are talking about tenders worth hundreds of millions of euros. And once the KLSH has investigated a file and given its verdict, according to the law, no one has control over it anymore. De facto, this means that the corruption of the Rama executive has now found a basis of legitimacy for its corruption through this control mechanism, third mistake of the US Ambassador
Unfortunately, the US ambassador also has interest-driven advice, this is because she listens too much to the interested circles of the milieu, fourth mistake.
Are the Albanians children, i.e. not of age?
No, Albania is one of the oldest cultural nations in Europe and has had a strong and progressive influence on European culture.
There were impressive Albanians, such as Francesco Crispi, who co-founded the present-day state of Italy, I am thinking of Robert Elsie, an internationally renowned Albanologist, who unfortunately died much too early, or Midhat Frasheri, a very well-known US American journalist of Albanian origin. Albanians are politically very involved in the USA and other European countries, I have many intellectual friends in Germany from Albania. Scientists with Albanian origin are represented in all renowned universities in the West, many young Albanians have studied at the universities and are highly educated. There are also very committed entrepreneurs in Albania who have potentials like we have in Germany or the USA.
Albania has provided excellent fighters for the mission in Afghanistan, but also for other missions of NATO and our security organisations. We have fought side by side with Albanians against Serbian war criminals in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Albanian politicians, including Berisha, led Albania out of socialism into a social market economy, into NATO and concluded the decisive international treaties. Of course, they also made mistakes, which government does not do that. However, the result of their policies was that the EU opened up the possibility for Albania to join in 2014, which was a magnificent achievement.
So, these are extraordinary achievements. The Albanians are not children, but adult Europeans, they are equal, with all their strengths and weaknesses.
Albania has structural problems, caused by poverty in the country and by drug trafficking and money laundering, which of course also leads to corruption. They have strategic problems, we will talk about Basha and Rama later.
But it is not the case that there is or was not also massive corruption and criminals in the highest institutions of the USA or Europe, so our representatives in Albania should not now treat the Albanians like stupid students.
They have been supporting the democratic opposition for years, why this conflict now.
Sure, it is important in Albania that there is not only a ruling party, but there must also be a strong opposition, otherwise no democracy can function. The DP is a European people's party, so we have to support it.
Well, the DP has done a great job, they helped to organise the revolution in 1992, they brought about the complete integration into the West, the accession to NATO and they managed to protect the Albanians in Kosovo, together with the Germans, the Americans and the British, and they managed to prevent the Albanian state from being overrun by the Serbs in the 90s. They also managed to get the EU to grant Albania membership in 2014, which was the result of 12 years of effective governance by personalities of the current opposition. Of course, every politician or government makes mistakes, but in the end we have to look at the results and effects. The results are impressive. The DP, by the way, has excellent experts and highly committed members.
And Basha?
Well, after he blocked us EU Democrats on Twitter, just so much, we have also had very close contact with him over the last 3 years and can form a very good opinion of him.
We had experienced very little strength in terms of content and knowledge of issues, a pronounced weakness in the strategic development of concepts and campaigns, an absolute volatility in decision-making, which affected foreign and domestic policy, but unfortunately also economic policy. We had him in Europe several times in the last years, we took him to talks with important ministers and EU Commissioners, he did not seem to be interested in the content of the talks, the same statements came again and again, basically he had nothing to say, he only seemed to be interested in photos than in technical talks, that was very banal, so very questionable, no EU country can be led with this personality structure.
In contrast, the other experts in the DP, with their proven personalities, are a joy. They are also conceptually strong, intellectually up to date, they have not lost contact with the population, incidentally also Berisha, who is not only conceptually strong, but can also reach the hearts of the people, that is what the people need.
I have not seen that with Basha either. He has no leadership qualities, he has no conservative, democratic background, he does not know the feelings of the hard-working men and women, not without reason he has not won an election in the last 9 years. On the contrary, he has strategically, conceptually sidelined the democratic party of Albania. Cuio bono? Answer: Rama. But, we bet on the team, that was the idea.
And?
Well, you can see that quite well in Basha's decision to expel MP Berisha from the parliamentary group. He dropped his mask, he's not a team player, he doesn't want a team, we've been blinded a bit there as well. It rather gives the impression that the still leader of the democrats in Albania, has consciously played the game with Rama for the last 9 years: good cop/bad cop. The MPs were asked to come to the party building at 6 pm on a Sunday. All of them were present on time, who was missing was the person Basha. They waited for Basha, his arrival was delayed. While they were waiting, Basha announced on TV that Berisha had been expelled from the parliamentary group. This process reminded me of socialist times before 1989.
This format shows the team spirit of Basha, which is close to zero. At this point, he has thrown overboard any basic understanding of democracy and the obligation to comply with the constitution. He was not allowed to take this decision and the most explosive thing about this action of Basha is his contempt towards the democratic organs within the DP, which he did not take seriously at all and put the MPs and party members in front of the television like school children.
A party organisation must have confidence in a party leader that on the one hand he will abide by the rules of the law and on the other hand he will also have ethical principles, i.e. treat all party members respectfully, by respecting the law. The way he dealt with the party member Berisha and the other members is also not correct for ethical and moral reasons - this is not the way to deal with colleagues.
What needs to be done now?
It is important that legality is reintroduced into the party organisation of the democratic party.
This can certainly only be possible through the election of an interim chairperson or team consisting of either the previous DP chairpersons or the last DP chairperson, for this of course it is a condition that Lulzim Basha resigns or he is voted out because of his massive breach of the law. Then the way would be clear to reconcile the party members again through your reorganisation of the DP, in the first period of transition an interim chairman should take office who can reach out and stabilise the heart of the democratic party again, only one can do that.
Mr Henze, thank you very much for the interview.
Interview in Albanian: