During the first training day of the State Police concerning their role in the election process, OSCE Ambassador Bernd Borchardt asked the State Police to keep their neutrality during the electoral campaign. We three months away from the elections, which are considered the foundation stone for democracy. The police has to secure the standards during the
In his weekly Facebook monologue, Prime Minister Edi Rama has stated that the elections will not be postponed, whether the opposition will boycott them or not. He argued that “contract with the people” lasts until June 18, and that the government cannot one-sidedly decide to break it up in order to make place for a
After a meeting in Tirana with General Prosecutor Adriatik Llalla, Italian Anti-Mafia Director Franco Roberti declared that “drug cultivation has tripled in Albania.” Roberti added that the influx of narcotics from Albania to Italy had increased considerably: Together with our Albanian colleagues we need to understand what the reason is for the increase in this
During his first television interview since arriving as head of the OSCE mission in Albania, Bernd Brochardt spoke about the risk of more than €2 billion of drugs money to “buy” the upcoming elections. Cannabis has been produced in Albania since the early ’90s. In 2013, the Guardia di Finanza would fly over Albania and estimated that
The German media outlet Deutsche Welle has covered the opposition protests of this weekend, and noticed the concern of the EU and OSCE for free elections.
The Central Election Commission (KQZ) budget for the parliamentary elections in June do not include funds for the implementation of electronic voting technology. This also means that the request of the opposition to implement electronic voting has not been honored by the government. Opposition leader Lulzim Basha had requested electronic voting as a way to
On February 3, 2017, the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) of the European Parliament (EP) has adopted the 2016 Commission Report on Albania, drafted by MEP Knut Fleckenstein. As Exit reported previously, Fleckenstein’s initial draft didn’t explicitly include the “five key priorities.” But the final report approved by AFET, and which will be voted in the next
In a press conference today, Speaker of Parliament and leader of the Socialist Movement for Integration (LSI) leader Ilir Meta refused to comment on the dismissal yesterday of LSI Minister of Justice Ylli Manjani. Yesterday Erisa Xhixho and parliamentary group leader Luan Rama have spoken about this. There are very important matters to discuss today,
The wealth declaration of deputy Alfred Peza showed a a very high income, of about 950 million lekë (~€6.9 million). He pretended the earnings were family savings during the time he worked as a journalist and media executive. Another list was published with income earned by well-known journalists. While its validity remains to be confirmed, it has opened
Last week, EU Ambassador Romana Vlahutin, in an interview with journalist Sokol Balla, addressed the enlargement of the EU and the possible opening of the accession negotiations for Albania. In spite of the fact that the EU Council of Ministers emphasized five key priorities that need to be fulfilled before the negotiations can be opened,