When Donald Trump won the US presidential elections last year, Prime Minister Edi Rama’s statements on CNN’s “Quest Means Business” came back like a boomerang. Having bet on the wrong horse, Rama suddenly had to justify his diplomatic faux-pas of interfering in foreign elections to someone he had called half a year earlier “harmful” to the democratic world. Of
Ethnic rivalries are resurfacing, but the problems are essentially political, not territorial. Not so long ago, I asked a Tirana colleague why the Balkans were no longer in the news. He said, “We are not doing anything well enough to attract attention. On the other hand, we are not doing anything bad enough either.” In
Authoritarian sentiments are rapidly spreading through the region. On April 16, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is holding a referendum that would ratify the establishment of a dictatorship in all but name. In Macedonia, the insistent refusal of President Gjorgje Ivanov to give Zoran Zaev’s parliamentary majority a mandate to form a government – under the
In an interview to ABCNews about the integration process of the Western Balkan countries, David McAllister, chair of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee stated that “the decision” to open accession negotiations is “not in the hands of the European Union”: It is up to the Balkan countries to decide whether they want to become
In a letter dated March 14, 2017, six US senators, including former presidential candidate Ted Cruz, have asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to investigate the relations between USAID and the Soros Foundation. The letter follows an inquiry of the State Department into the usage of US governmental funds by the US Embassy and USAID
Edi Rama’s “Tirana Agreement” from January 7, a direct intervention into the national politics of Macedonia, now threatens to throw Macedonia into a constitutional crisis and ethnic unrest. After the Macedonian general elections on December 11, Rama had invited the Albanian minority parties to Tirana to unify their position on minority rights. The agreement included
US Needs Clear Policy in the Balkans The new U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is a highly accomplished individual. As CEO of ExxonMobil, he presided over world’s largest oil and gas company with an annual revenue of almost $270 billion— or about the size of Pakistan’s total economy. Having worked and lived in places
During a first informal meeting with journalists today, the chief of the International Monitoring Mission (ONM) Genoveva Ruiz Calavera made her first public appearance in Albania, commenting on the vetting process that commence as part of the judicial reform in the coming months and the role of the ONM in this process. The ONM consists of
Director of the National History Museum (MHK) Melsi Labi has been fired after openly criticizing the Ministry of Culture. During an interview for Dritare, Labi complained that the reconstruction works on Skënderbeg Square had a strong negative influence on the visitor numbers of the MHK, because the entrance had become impossible to find. Labi called the situation
“Democracy is in danger,” “Media is not a workshop,” “AMA give up”… Hundreds of people were gathered in front of the municipality, raising their voices so that their anger could be heard. A few days back, famous journalists working for MAPO newspaper and ABC TV, considered close to the opposition, declared that their contracts had