Albanian President Ilir Meta stated that OSCE Ambassador Berndt Borchard is not welcome at the President’s Office after he questioned the validity of presidential decrees on the last local elections, according to Meta, and stuck his middle finger up at protesting citizens.
President Meta sent a letter to the OSCE General Assembly in Copenhagen, OSCE Presence in Albania, and the ministry of foreign affairs, in which he wrote:
“Mr Berndt Borchardt, who questioned the Decree of the President of the Republic of Albania on the June 2019 local elections, and who publicly stuck his finger to Albanian citizens, is not welcome anymore at the Institution of the President of the Republic.”
Ambassador Borchardt had commented on the situation after President Meta’s decrees, saying that “now this is a matter of internal debate. I am very confident that the Albanian institutions will find a wise decision on who has a better legal argument.”
The president’s decision comes only few weeks before Albania assumes the OSCE chairmanship for 2020.
