A Letter From The Consulate

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The National Theater fight
  
Present Italian building from 1939                                   Project by Danish BIG Architects (more)

The Alliance for the Protection of the National Theater building held a protest against the special law and the expected demolition of the National Theater building for the whole duration of the plenary sitting outside the Assembly’s Hall of Meetings. The Alliance said in a press statement that the amended law is an act of legal folly, and their efforts to stop its enforcement will continue by all possible means. According to the Alliance, the special law’s enforcement would mark the country’s turning into a dictatorship, both de jure and de facto, as the Albanian Constitution and the rights deriving from it will have no legal value, even formally.

The DP boycotts again parliament and attacks the government
Democratic Party (DP) Chair Lulzim Basha announced on Sept. 20. 2018  the latest law-making initiative of the Albanian opposition: amendments to the Anti-mafia Law. According to him, they specify the seizure and expropriation of the assets of companies and oligarchs that have signed corrupt public-private partnership (PPP) and concessionary agreements with the Rama government. The DP Chair said no laws would be approved, no pacts would be concluded, and no negotiations would be launched without solving first what he said was the most pressing issue: removing from office the crime-controlled politicians. “Unless this happens through the law on the vetting of politicians, it is the duty of the Albanian people to join ranks with the opposition, in order to solve this problem together, by acting in the same way as the opposition and citizens of a civilized country would act when the institutions, constitution and laws of the land are usurped by criminals and robbers and the politicians tied to them,” Basha said. He made these remarks in a meeting of the Opposition MPs held yesterday in Vlora in parallel with the Assembly’s plenary sitting.

The Prime Minister on the national Theater and the DP vetting proposal.
In a TV interview on Sept. 20. Prime Minister Edi Rama said that the National Theater building will be demolished, as it is a worthless ramshackle building. “There is nothing worthwhile in it. It is time for a new theater building,” Rama said. In addition, Rama described the Opposition’s law-making initiative on the politicians’ vetting as an act of charlatanry. He said that this product of legal madness will be taken to the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission, saying that there were better ways to conduct the vetting of the politicians. “The first way is the people’s vote and the second is the criminal prosecution of corrupt politicians by SPAK and the National Bureau of Investigations,” Rama said. He referred to some recent surveys conducted by the Socialist Party, showing that this political force would gain more votes, and as a result more MPs, if the general elections were held now.

DP fighting ghosts.
Democratic Party (DP) MP Enkelejd Alibeaj said in an interview on August 15. that the DP was working on a draft law to fight communist propaganda and the use of communist symbols in the country. He said a copy of the draft had been sent for consultation to the Conrad Adenauer Foundation, with the DP now awaiting their response as regards the judicial aspects of the draft. As per the draft law, the DP would request the placing of footnotes on films or books from the communist era – including Ismail Kadare’s books – in order to provide context and explanations on the times, so as to counterbalance the regime’s propaganda in them.

Visit the "secret Albania" of Ismail Kadaré.
Click here to watch the 15 minutes movie in French. Don´t miss it.

Austrian ambassador on the start of EU membership negotiations in June 2019 
In an interview given to Albanian Daily News, Austrian Ambassador to Albania Johann Sattler spoke about the high-level meetings marking the agenda of political exchanges between Tirana and Vienna in the coming months. He said that some of these events will be held under the auspices of Austrian Presidency of the European Union (EU) in the form of regional meetings. According to him, the high points of this agenda will be the visits of President of the Republic Ilir Meta to Vienna in October and the visit of the Austrian Parliament Speaker to Tirana, again in the autumn. Ambassador Sattler called on the Albanian political class to set aside their differences and work together in order to help the country advance on its EU accession path. He described the launching of membership talks between Albania and the EU in June 2019 as an achievable goal if the Albanian politicians worked together for this purpose.

That´s all for now,