Kosovo and Albania vs. Serbia
Mr Henze, freedom and democracy are your subject. But is Albania a constitutional state and a liberal democracy? And does Albania still have hidden reserves?
If you look for them in Albania, you will find purely Albanian initiatives everywhere, including NGO-free ones, from the fire brigade to private associations of children's institutions, nature conservation organisations and help for women who have suffered violence. Even in Albania's largest opposition party, the DP, this could now be seen very clearly in the Open Talk initiative. Albania has considerable hidden reserves, and the activation of these reserves should lead to rapid membership in the EU, if ambassadors or others from the Eastern and/or Western world do not keep interfering in Albania and trying to teach the Albanians how to live properly.
The problem in Albania seems to me rather to be that these activities are quite unevenly distributed, and Albanian civil society is confronted with an autocratic executive Rama and his partner, the MP Lulzim Basha, who count considerable criminal tendencies among their characteristics.
The complementary problem to this encrusted executive and the backward-looking MP Basha are opportunist groups around these individuals. Rama is surrounded by opportunists, so he is unlikely to have an independent view of reality any more, a real problem for him and Basha needs the opportunists so that he can still breathe politically. Basically, the opportunists are a real problem in Albania, as in all other societies.
You don't like opportunists?
No, I despise opportunists, they are weak, stupid and very simple people. Rather something for production in the countryside, they should not sit in a parliament.You see Rama is an autocrat and grossly misadvised, a no go. But opportunists are even worse.
They are not reliable, but change behaviour and attitudes as objectives and restrictions change. Opportunism goes beyond mere self-interest, since self-interest, according to this notion, can also be pursued through various forms of guile, lies and deceit, more concretely the failure to keep promises, the withholding of information. Opportunists are the dregs of a society, they are people, as we say here in the North, without backbone, the arsonists of democracy.?The crimes of the Shoah, the over 30 million dead of the Russian Revolution, the slaughter of a large part of the population in socialist Cambodia, the horrific Cultural Revolution in China, would not have been possible without the opportunists in these societies. They are the basis of every autocracy, the abyss, the dregs of a society.
In Albania, too, you need more people who stand by their opinions and views, for whom the spoken word counts, i.e. who have principles, are true patriots and fight to protect their families and their nation, people who have empathy, not just for their own pockets. Therefore, I look with great friends at the Open Talk Initiative in the largest Albanian opposition party, the DP, and I look with disdain at the opportunists who surround MPs Basha and Rama.
Rama and Berisha are not opportunists?
No, both are real leaders, but Rama does not correspond to my basic political and cultural attitude, but that is something else. Everyone has the opportunity to shape his life the way he thinks is right and we also have the right to have a different opinion and what also seems important to me in the direction of Rama, everyone also has the opportunity to change in life, he should also do it, who comes too late, history punishes him, Gorbachev had called out to the socialist autocrat Honecker in East Berlin on 7 October 1989. So, Edi Rama, turn back, your and your family's last chance.
Elections in Europe are orderly revolutions without bloodshed, something that can no longer be taken for granted in view of other democracies. Is there such a thing as zero hour for the new Rama government in Albania? Can it start over with everything?
No, for two reasons, firstly, the parliamentary elections in 2021, like the parliamentary elections in 2017, were massively falsified by representatives of the ruling party and by the involvement of the Rama executive, I only remember the 900,000 records (personal data of the opposition representatives), and the then opposition leader , who apparently had no real interest in the election campaign and even then probably had an agreement with Rama. The only question is how high was his price?
On the other hand, the ruling party Rama continues where it left off in June 2021, the state structures do not function according to the rule of law, the political consensus with the opposition is not sought and the opposition is tried to be neutralised by the MP Lulzim Basha, who apparently initiated a personal contract with the autocrat Rama. In this respect, there will be no possibility in the Rama government to concentrate on the political project of accession to the EU and an economic and social recovery of Albania, but more on that later, unless something fundamental happens. The beginning has been made with Open Talk, the Democratic, pro - Western opposition, in Albania, under the leadership of Sali Berisha.
In Albania, you said, Prime Minister Rama talks about war and had tanks rolled up in Dures in May 2020. But a pandemic is not a war. And health is not something that can be defended with fire and sword. How can trust be created in this state of emergency in Albania?
Politically: If the pandemic is actually fought and the costs are distributed in a socially acceptable way on all shoulders. Administratively: When things are running smoothly, free of corruption. Few things create as much trust in a state as a well-organised disaster response.??Politically, the pandemic in Albania was not and is not being fought in a results-oriented way. Administratively, there is pure chaos in Albania. As I said, Rama is surrounded by a group of opportunists and now add to that the very weak-minded, not necessarily intellectually gifted Lulzim Basha, who seems to have only a short-term memory, not a good outlook for the country. It would be amusing to continue watching the comedy if the situation were not so dramatic and dangerous for Albanian society and economy at the moment.
Is " cohesion" a wrong word for you?
But yes, "Zusammenhalt" - a German word for which, by the way, there is also no reasonable translation in other languages - the word has an excess of "friendship" where it is first about more modest things like tolerance, the rule of law and functionality. All Albanians do not have to become friends in order to function as a society of solidarity.
Freedom is good for everything. Everyone takes the freedom that suits them at the moment. This can mean vitality, but also disorientation and destruction. So who is freer in Albania - those who continue to pursue the stasis quo, like Rama and Basha, or those who want to change something, create a future, after 9 years of standstill and regression?
Even if one defines freedom in a narrowly utility-maximising way as the ability to do what one wants, one cannot be free alone in Albania, as in any other civil society.
It always requires others and discussion and criticism, no one is the same. Democracy only works if there is real opposition, i.e. a discussion between a majority and a minority, that is part of the separation of powers. And it must also be possible to criticise one's strategic, foreign partners. Of course, every democrat has the right to criticise the policies of the USA and Europe; this does not make them enemies of the West. However, anyone who thinks that criticising the USA equates to anti-Americanism, as MP Lulzim Basha does in Albania, had better see a doctor and go home by the shortest route.
Under the leadership of MP Basha, there has increasingly been no freedom in this sense in recent months, he has chosen personal cooperation with Rama and only criticises aspects that he has been putting forward since 2013, the two play good cop and bad cop, it is personal interest driven politics. He has positioned or outed himself for us outside democratic civil societies.
The Open Talk movement of Sali Berisha is therefore the right and only way to find again a common freedom and democracy in Albania. Only if this succeeds, the youth will stay in Albania and a large part of the Albanian youth from abroad will return. The country and the region would be stabilised again.
You had proposed in June 2021, after the parliamentary election, that there should be a transitional government because of the state emergency in the economic and health sectors, right?
Correct, in the result and in the reasoning. However, the starting point for this proposal was the rigged parliamentary election and the irregular local elections in 2019. There can only be a democracy and free elections if there is a democratic electoral law that meets international standards and a rule of law, both of which did not exist on 25 April 2021, in addition to the structural rigging of the elections. However, a country in a state of emergency needs a legitimate government, which is the reason for our demand. The basic condition for this is a compromise between the two camps and the resignation of the two actors, Basha and Rama. Lulzim Basha is ousted as leader of the Democratic Party of Albania on 11/18 December 2021, we also expect him to give back his parliamentary mandate.
Now the question is whether Mr. Rama has the courage to turn around, i.e. whether he will also bid farewell or whether he will perspectively initiate new elections.
And who actually protects freedom in Albania?
Ideally, everyone for everyone. Strictly speaking, however, "taking up arms" is not a freedom procedure. Freedom is ultimately a self-supporting concept.?One cannot delegate the exercise of freedom to others, which is why the Basha and Rama system is so damaging to freedom in Albania, depriving individual citizens in Albania of their freedom of expression, ultimately treating Albanians like little children.
With the illegal actions of MP Basha against persons in the opposition party of Albania, the non-observance of party laws, illegal financial transactions in the USA and the open criminal proceedings in Belgium, the freedom of party members to decide freely is torpedoed by him, we speak at this point of material unfreedom.
In Albania, however, it is even worse, because due to a flawed legal reform, the supreme courts have been permanently dysfunctionally organised since 2018, the remaining judges, due to the subordination of the Albanian judiciary to the executive Rama, do not decide even explosive issues that put the government in distress, or as in the criminal case of Basha or Tahiri, decide incorrectly or react leniently, there is also no formal freedom.?
No right to protection of individual rights in Albania, political actors like Basha and Tahiri escape with impunity.?
The acceptance and trust of the rule of law in Albania is therefore currently close to zero, this must change, otherwise any reform and further development in Albania is pointless. It is not a technical question. I have a fundamentally different view from that of US Ambassador Kim, Tirana. A constitutional state, a democracy can only function if the majority accepts it and trusts the state institutions.
Opposition is not a good thing per se; it can be unreasonable, even stupid, and a provocation for the majority. But when does it get dicey?
Of course, this also applies to the government in reverse; this is the way it is in a democracy and must be endured, indeed, it must be so. The opposition party DP under the leadership of the interim executive committee will now do a good job, we support that from the European side. Albania has not had a real opposition leader for several years. This cannot continue, the opportunists surrounding Basha should also be removed.In Albania, there is de facto parity between the voters of the opposition and the ruling party, if we leave aside the manipulation of the parliamentary elections. In this respect, they have to play two roles.
It gets dicey, and we Europeans see it that way, when, as in Albania, a government is organised that is not legitimate due to the rigged election and we have an opposition MP, in this case Lulzim Basha, as the former party leader of the Democratic Party of Albania, who cooperated with the government, also in the distribution of posts, and thus tries to eliminate the opposition's control functions.In this respect, it was also very important from a democratic point of view that this person, Basha, was duly voted out of office by the elected members of the party, in accordance with the law, on 11/18 December 2021.?International observers were present during the procedure and did not find any flaw in the process.?
The Albanian opposition has shown that they have both feet in NATO and in the West, the majority of the delegates and members of the DP have shown, despite being massively and partly existentially threatened by the Basha grouping, that they are ready to take responsibility, we can only congratulate them, they are true democrats, friends of Europe and the USA.
Now the squatter problem must be eliminated.
What do you mean by that?
Well, it seems that Lulzim Basha, who was voted out of office, is planning to make himself at home in the party headquarters, and he also seems to want to cook there. MP Basha has had all the locks in the party building changed so that some of the parliamentary MPs and staff cannot enter their offices. In the meantime, he had also tried to expel the majority of critics from the democratic party.
He does not accept the majority decision of the party bodies according to the law, it seems to be a pathological case.??He is thus massively damaging the reputation of the democratic party of Albania. So a house - squatter.?It seems he has to be carried out of the building, that's what we do in Europe and the USA with squatters.?This person Basha reminds me more and more of the autocrats in East Berlin in 1989, who also completely ignored the realities.
In the end, who bears more responsibility for Albania, the state or society and thus every Albanian?
The joke about democracy should be that this distinction should not be turned into a contradiction. Everyone has a responsibility, whether we get involved in politics in Albania or decide to watch it and just go to the polls. However, the death of a democracy is opportunists.
How can democratic mentality, personal freedom and social responsibility mesh better in Albania?
A difficult question, I am not an Albanian at the moment. Editor's note: Mr Henze laughs. But it probably has a lot to do with education, in which stubbornness and dissent must be encouraged much more in Albania, but at the same time action in and for the Albanian community, and not for individual interest groups, must be rewarded.Kennedy once summed this up well, as he so often does, when he said: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country".
Mr Henze, Open Balkans, how do you assess the agreement of Olivér Várhelyi, the EU Accession Commissioner to the negotiations between Serbia and Albania?
Well, for one thing, Olivér cannot speak for the EU in foreign policy matters, that is the sole responsibility of the European nation states, i.e. the EU Council, he is not legitimised to do so. Secondly, he has been misquoted by the government propaganda of the autocrats in Belgrade and Tirana.
For the EU Commission, the EU Council and also Germany, the enlargement of the European Union to include the Western Balkans is one of the most important foreign policy priorities. Therefore, the EU wants to proceed on several tracks: First, concrete steps have been presented to strengthen the accession process. North _ Macedonia and Kosovo have achieved a great deal. Negotiations should now be opened with them as a first step.
Unfortunately, the Rama government has not fulfilled any of the 15 Albanian - EU criteria; on the contrary, deliberately induced regressions are discernible. Prime Minister Rama also tells the public that he does not know any accession criteria. He seems to be suffering from political dementia.
So while the process needs to be strengthened and improved, especially in Albania, but also in Montenegro, the EU goal remains unchanged - it is about accession and full membership of the Balkan countries in the EU. Oliver has not and cannot communicate anything else.
Serbia is an associate member of Russia's Eurasian Economic Union and holds joint, aggressive military exercises with Russia on NATO's external borders and destabilises the Balkans through hybrid action, whether through communication, provocation as in Montenegro or Kosovo or as now in the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina or through partisanship as in the parliamentary elections in the countries, for pro-Serbian parties or through the attempt through the Open Balkans initiative to dissuade the Balkan countries from the desire to become members of the EU.
The association of the Serbs with the Eurasian Economic Union of the Russians and the lack of membership in NATO, the arms transfer agreements between Russia and Serbia and the military camps of the Russians near Belgrade, the activities and cooperation with FPS, GRU and SWR allowed by Serbia and its RDB do not correlate with EU membership and are also directed against NATO, Serbia knows that.?
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Therefore, Serbia cannot become a member of the EU at the moment and I also have the impression that Serbia does not want to. Serbia's foreign policy interest is the reconstruction of Yugoslavia, but unlike in Tito's time, not non-aligned, but alongside the Russians, i.e. a Yugoslavia 2.0.
In summary, for this reason alone, there can be no economic union, no Open Balkans, with Serbia in the Balkans. The 5 Balkan countries must now concentrate on working on the accession criteria, which, as we have seen in Croatia, can lead to membership in the shortest possible time, one only has to want it. If Serbia changes its mind, go ahead. Then it must become a member of NATO and the EU, the borders must be recognised by Kosovo and Schengen applies within the EU, so border issues are irrelevant anyway. But there are other aspects we have to consider.
Which ones?
Rama and Basha are now showing their true colours, with Rama negotiating with Serbia, wanting to organise an economic union between Albania and Serbia without including Kosovo. De facto, Kosovo is being pushed into a corner economically, as this country is located between these two countries. This calls into question the status quo of the state of Kosovo, which would hardly be able to act economically.
This is a massive step by the autocrat Rams towards the further destabilisation of the Balkans.
Why is this a problem?
Well, the further the Balkans are destabilised by Rama from Albania and Vucic from Serbia, the danger of a regional war grows, we already had that once , 1998/1999.In this context, there are two problems, one is the problem between Kosovo and Serbia and the other is Serbia's close cooperation with Russia.Let me first briefly address the Kosovo issue. Vucic, with whom Rama now has an association agreement, euphemistically called "mini-Schengen" or "regional economic area", was an active member of the Serbian radical party during the time of Serbian war crimes from 1993 to 2008, for which he was Serbian Minister of Information from 1998 to 2000, so in the middle of the terrible Balkan war, Serbia was at war, also in Kosovo, he had the responsibility for propaganda.?
Mr Henze, the dominant figure in the issue of mini-Schengen and the regional economic area is Alexander Vucic, is that a problem??
Vuic and the Russians.
How may I understand you, both of them?
The Russians are concerned with dominance in Eastern Europe. Putin knows that his primary sources of income, i.e. oil and gas, will dry up by 2035 at the latest, the products will then hardly be needed internationally, in the same quantities as before. On the other hand, due to climate change, the entire permafrost soil in all of Siberia will warm up, with the result that raw material production in Siberia will hardly be possible any more, the infrastructure there will collapse completely, all the way to the Urals.
Russia would then be de facto economically insolvent, so it needs an economic area controlled by Moscow, as it did before 1989. We should not forget that Russia today has only 2/3 of the gross national product of Italy, an ailing, corrupt economy and the majority of the population is poor. Russia invests primarily in its military technology instead of investing predominantly in social infrastructures, not a considered approach.
Serbia's partner is Russia, Serbia's original interest, and here there is an alignment of interest with the Russians, the re-establishment of Serbian dominance in the Balkans, it is simply about economic influence.
For 13 years Slobodan Milosevic was the ruler in Belgrade. This period saw several civil wars and crimes the likes of which had not been seen in Europe since 1945. On 1 April 2001 he was imprisoned.
Outwardly he posed as a socialist, but he was actually a Serbian nationalist. His goal was the domination of the Serbian population over the other ethnic groups in the Western Balkans. This became apparent in his speech on the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Field of Blackbirds. During the attempted genocide of the Albanians in Kosovo in 1999, Vucic was Minister of the Interior and thus responsible for the police operations and the operations of the special groups of the Ministry of the Interior in Kosovo.
Vu?i? has a useful relationship with his political mentor, the war criminal ?e?elj, who is regularly allowed to appear in the studios of pro-government television stations to campaign not against the government but against the civil opposition, independent journalists, Croats or Albanians.
Or let us think of the statements of the Serbian politician Vjerica Radeta It is about a tweet she sent after the death of Hatidza Mehmedovic, the chairperson of the Mothers of Srebrenica. Knowing that Hatidza Mehmedovic lost her two sons, her husband and many relatives in 1995 to the killing of the Serbian soldateska in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, the member of the nationalist "Serbian Radical Party" , Vuci was its president in the 1990s, tried to humiliate the recently deceased once again. "I read that Hatidza Mehmedovic from the Srebrenica Business Women's Organisation has died. Who will bury her? Her husband or her sons?"
A shameful insult, at the expense of the genocide in Srebrenica by the Serbs. In 1995, when the genocide in Srebrenica happened, Vucic was even Secretary General of the Radical Party and close associate of "Vojvoden" Vojislav Seselj, who to this day is fully behind the genocide in Srebrenica. At the time, Vucic threatened to shoot 100 Bosniaks for the death of one Serb.
On a visit to the former Serbian province of Kosovo in 2018, Vu?i? gave a fiery speech to local Serbs in Kosovo against the backdrop of renewed tensions and contrary to EU and US efforts to reach a historic reconciliation agreement between Belgrade and Pristina. "Milo?evi? was a great Serb leader whose intentions were certainly good. But the results were very bad. This was because our wishes were unrealistic - while we neglected and underestimated the interests and wishes of other nations," Vu?i? said. "For this reason, we paid the highest price. We have not become greater". Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin, who is known for his populist statements, made a clear statement in 2021. On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the founding of his Socialist Movement, a small alliance partner of Aleksandar Vucic's ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), Vulin pleaded for the "construction of a Serbian world". The task of this generation of politicians is to "realise the unification of Serbs wherever they live", Vulin said. This statement brought back memories of the idea of a Greater Serbia under the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, whom Vucic described as a great leader. At the same time, Vulin appealed to Vucic to "take responsibility for this and run for president again". The next presidential elections are due to take place in spring 2022. Bosnian Foreign Minister Bisera Turkovic expressed the expectation that Vucic would officially distance himself from Vulin's statements. However, this has not happened. The glorification of Milo?evi? and the focus on a Yugoslavia 2.0, this is the core of Vucic's basic political stance, a nationalist potential of the Serbs in the region and beyond the borders of Kosovo, which should not be underestimated even after almost two decades of peace in the Balkans.?
The tireless oppositionist and chairperson of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Belgrade, Sonja Biserko, then only succinctly stated: "This process shows that the spirit of Serbia ... is once again rejoining the time of Slobodan Milosevic."
Milosevic and his government from 1991 onwards had wanted to prevent the break-up of the multi-ethnic state with brutal violence and thus triggered the civil war in Yugoslavia. For this he was soon called the "Butcher of the Balkans". This direct war continues today in a hybrid form, Open Balkans is also part of this hybrid strategy, the aim being to separate the Balkan countries from NATO and the EU.
The Serbs' goal of partitioning Kosovo has not been abandoned to this day. According to it, the areas in the north of the country inhabited mainly by Serbs were to fall to Serbia and, as compensation, three municipalities in southern Serbia, where mainly Albanians live, were to fall to Kosovo. But the problem in Serbia, is a much deeper issue. Even convicted war criminals have returned to influential positions in Belgrade after their imprisonment.The list of such cases is long: Vladimir Lazarevic, for example, sentenced to 14 years in prison for crimes in Kosovo. After his release, he was flown back to Serbia from The Hague on a government plane, received an honourable reception there and became a guest lecturer at the military academy.There he teaches the future officers of the Serbian army.?Or Veselin Sljivancanin, sentenced to ten years in prison, today a regular speaker at events of the ruling SNS party, the party of President Aleksandar Vucic."This whole layer that survived Milosevic: There was never a real change in personnel in the institutions, that, for example, certain people can no longer be employed.?
If there had been, our President Vucic and Foreign Minister Dacic could not have public functions either - or even run for office, and they would have had to face the International Criminal Court in The Hague.The West, especially the EU, seems to me to be very naive in this regard.
What do you mean by that?
This kind of policy of ignoring or truncating reality obscures the view of the realities and thus of the solution to the problems. Serbia's President Vu?i? said after the meeting with the EU in Brussels that Prime Minister Kurti had asked him when he would finally recognise Kosovo's independence. "My answer was: never!", Vu?i? said.?
Vucic is very clear and unequivocal on this issue, he is an autocrat. This clarity in political communication should be taken very seriously, because the Serbs will never give up their territorial claims in the Balkans for historical reasons, they are not willing to compromise. We can compare this well with Putin and Ukraine or Crimea. These claims to power will not be given up and will be enforced in due course, the autocrats need sources of income and for that they need land.?
We Europeans must point out our interests and the red lines much more clearly and explicitly and also actually draw the consequences if the red lines are crossed. Only clear communication without discussion, based not on wishes but on realities, will be understood by Rama in Belgrade and in Tirana and can then lead to compromises or mutual rapprochement.
So mini-Schengen, now euphemistically called Open Balkans by Rama and Vucic, is an annex to the Eurasian Economic Union of the Russians?
The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is a merger around the Russian Federation into a common market with a customs union. The EAEU is the de facto successor to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). CMEA was established in 1949 as a socialist counterpart to the Marshall Plan/Nato and the EU, and was dissolved in 1989 for the benefit of Eastern Europe.
Serbia signed a free trade agreement with the EAEU on 25 October 2019. The EU and Slovakia urged Serbia at the time not to establish a free trade area with the Eurasian Economic Union to avoid a possible collision with the European Union. "If you are serious about your European orientation, you have to take political decisions that bring you closer together.?
This is not one of them," Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Laj?ák said after the meeting of EU and Western Balkan foreign ministers in Helsinki. "You cannot go in several directions at the same time," he added. The European Commission has also warned Serbia against pushing ahead with trade deals with the Russian-led economic bloc. Serbia, it said, was not interested in this at all and was now focusing on Albania and Macedonia, i.e. a Yugoslavia 2.0, which would be an integral part of the EAEU.?
After the conversation with Rama a few days ago, Vucic immediately flew to Moscow. There he will report to the Russian. So, in the end, it is all about Russia's and Serbia's attempt to prevent the Balkan countries from joining the EU.?
The attempt to discredit the pro-Western democrat Berisha, through actors in Belgrade, Tirana as well as an NGO foundation of a stock market speculator, the negotiations on the agreement between Albania and Belgrade, but also the failure of the Albanian government to fulfil the 15 criteria for EU accession must be seen in this context.
So Open Balkans as a strategic tool for integration into the Eurasian Economic Union?
In an article for the Russian newspaper Izvestia in October 2011, Putin outlined the project of a new regional organisation, the Eurasian Union. The idea of such a union had been around for 20 years after it was proposed by President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan. Nor is there a lack of predecessor organisations: A customs union between Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus has existed since January 2010 and the Eurasian Economic Community was launched in May 2011,
The purpose of the Eurasian Union, as originally defined by Putin, was to establish a cooperative organisation for regional integration. Analogous to the EU, it was to contribute to the development of Russia and the countries in its neighbourhood. Now, unfortunately, the Union seems to be degenerating into a club of dictators, which is a great pity, in which Russia exercises control over the other member states.
Instead of putting joint economic development and the Union's positioning in international trade in the foreground, Putin chose the path of symbolism and prestige. Instead of making the Union attractive to other countries, it is being stylised as a Russian power project and this is being systematically advanced, in hybrid mechanics, now also in the Balkans since 2018.
At an economic summit on 30 July 2021 and at a subsequent joint press conference, Rama demanded that the "sceptics" in Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro should outline what they believe speaks against joining the Open Balkans initiative formerly known as "mini-Schengen".?The respective governments should at least outline "where they want to cooperate, where they want to build common structures and where they want to present a common front to the outside world."A very problematic appearance by Rama. Calling the prime ministers sceptics just because they focus exclusively on EU and NATO integration. Kosovo's sovereignty is not recognised and EU and NATO integration is thereby undermined.?Mr. Rama has thus clearly positioned himself, against the West, against NATO, this is not the view of the Albanian nation, he has no legitimacy to make such, statements under international law. In any cooperation with Serbia, which is in Russia's sphere of influence, there must be a clear declaration on NATO and EU membership and on the recognition of Kosovo. The governments have to decide whether they want to belong to Russia or to the civil societies. The other Balkan countries have realised this, only Rama and Zaev have not.
The USA/EU are doing too little?
In a letter to Biden a few weeks ago, six members of Congress said they were concerned about the political situation in Serbia and the impact it could have on the region and Europe. Biden should consider using Executive Order 14033 to seize the assets of those responsible for destabilising the situation.
It is certainly a right and important partial step to first freeze the accounts of Vucic, Rama , , Basha Zaev and his combatants and deny them entry to the US, the same should be done by the EU. All four people no longer represent Western interests. The time when our tax money is wasted and thus indirectly finances the destabilisation of the Balkans should be over. With the exception of Serbia, the Balkan states have opted for NATO and the EU.?The governments of Rama, Vucic and Zaev seem to go other ways, in deviation from their sovereign, which should now lead to consequences, they too must now decide which political hemisphere they want to belong to.?Whoever that is now. It is good that the EU, and especially Germany, is working for the accession of Kosovo, Albania and the other countries. But at the same time, the US and the EU must also live up to their role as a club of democracies.?
So EU accession is a solution for the Balkan states?
Yes, there is no alternative if the citizens want freedom and prosperity. We Europeans and Germans want that, and so does the USA.?France must and will also give its consent to the visa agreement with Kosovo in 2022.The problem is that the polarisation between East and West that we experienced before 1989 is back, but many US Americans and Europeans don't want to admit that, they are still dreaming a bit.?The Balkan states are indeed faced with the decision of which political system they want to belong to. That is the question that needs to be clarified: East or West, even if some in Brussels, Berlin and Paris do not yet want to admit it.The ordinary people in Albania, in the Balkans, often do not yet know what Europe really is. They dream of a world in which policemen do not beat up demonstrators, prime ministers are not corrupt, human rights apply and families can experience a future, including an economic future. In this respect, the democratic oppositions in the Balkans, especially in Albania, are fighting for European values; in the Balkan wars and also in the last demonstrations in Albania, people died for European values; they valued their values more than their survival instinct. I think that we Europeans can be proud of these people in the Balkan countries and must now stand by their side.
What do you say about the statements or lack of statements by Lulzim Basha in Albania?
Well, it was to be expected. He is a tacit supporter of Rama's deal with Vucic. Already in 2019 he had told me in a personal conversation that he does not want to stand in Rama's way on this issue, an absolutely incomprehensible statement. We told him that this is an anti-Western act and then we will part ways if he does not change.?
Hope therefore lies on our EU and US American friends in the DP since 2019, one of the most intelligent minds in the Albanian opposition, is indeed Sali Berisha, a man of the West, a patriot of the Albanian nation, a European in the good sense, who can also think big. He will now reform the democratic opposition of Albania with the newly elected, transitory board of the DP. So that a substantial opposition in Albania can arise again, a guarantor for democracy, the rule of law and EU and NATO membership.?
There is much to do in 2022 for Albanians at home and abroad, so let's do it together, it might be the last chance for Albania to create a good future for your nation.
Mr Henze, thank you for the interview.
Interview in Albanian language: