Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama addresses the media after the EU-Albania Association Council in Brussels, on November 17. ‘Nationalistic attitudes can sometimes surface quickly, often reflecting a lack of maturity and awareness,’ Rama tells Kathimerini over a joke he made about Greeks in January. [AP]
The photograph was taken in 1903. It depicts 87 boys, 11 girls, three teachers and a priest, all with a frown on their faces as they look at the lens. Below, in capital letters, it reads: The students of the Greek school of Vouno, in Himare. Vouno is Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s maternal village. In a recent interview with Kathimerini, he claimed that no one in Vouno spoke Greek. The photograph says otherwise.
The points Rama makes in the interview are, unfortunately, equally weak. He spoke at length on the issue of property rights, which is one of the two biggest issues in the country right now (the other one being corruption). The problem appeared after the communist regime nationalized all assets in the 1950s. It’s been 35 years since the regime fell and Rama has been prime minister the last 13 of those, leaving Albania as the only former communist country in Europe as a whole that has not resolved the issue.
Rama passed a law in 2020 on property rights that has yet to be implemented. In 2024, as part of the country’s accession framework, Albania made a commitment to the European Union that it would issue property titles by 2030. Nothing has been done since. On the contrary, no one knows how many properties have been recorded, nor who their legal owners are, as the authorities will not disclose the information, in violation of existing legislation.
The quantitative data on property restitution are particularly revealing. According to the land register, the process at the nationwide level is said to be about 60% advanced. In the municipalities, however, where Albania’s Greek minority largely resides, these rates remain dramatically low. They do not exceed 10% in Himara, 20% in Finiq and 30% in Dropull.
The fact is that ethnic Greeks who manage to secure their property rights only have one option for exploiting their assets, and that’s selling them
And this is why the Albanian government refuses to publish detailed data on property restitution by municipality, especially for Himara and the southern areas in general. It does not want to reveal the adverse discrimination against the Greek minority.
Similar discrimination is evident in the matter of strategic and smaller-scale investments. There is not a single Greek name to be seen in the information on investors published by the Territorial Council, of which Rama is, shockingly, the president. The fact is that ethnic Greeks who manage to secure their property rights only have one option for exploiting their assets, and that’s selling them.
Rama also referred to the development of tourism, which exists despite a complete absence of infrastructure. What is interesting, though, is that it relies entirely on domestic capital – no foreigner has come to invest in the country. Furthermore, international organizations report that the majority of these funds have not been raised through legal channels. The absence of foreign investors comes down to the inability to compete against shady funds as much as it does to corruption. Such a model of growth is not sustainable.
In the same interview, Rama displays an aversion to certain words or situations. He systematically refers to residents of Greek origin as “Greek-speaking people” and claims that the mayor of Himare (chosen by him), Vangjel Tavo, has one Greek and one Albanian parent, when everyone knows that both are Greek. Even Tavo himself exploits his Greek heritage to serve the rhetoric of the Socialist Party of Albania.
Referring to me, Rama says that “What happened in the past with the individual who ended up in jail instead of serving as mayor was unfortunate.” I would like to note that I have a name, two in fact: one that was declared at the registry office under the communist regime, when we were deprived of our fundamental religious rights, Fredi, and the other, which was given to me later, when I was baptized, Dionysios. And my imprisonment was not some “unfortunate” event. My prosecution was the result of a scheme orchestrated personally by Rama (incidentally, the prosecutor he selected to bring charges against me has since been convicted over a different affair and is now in prison). A ruling from the European Court of Human Rights is expected soon, which will take stock of what took place during that period.
In conclusion, what we have are two different pictures of Albania. The image officially projected by the Albanian prime minister, Edi Rama, on the one hand and, on the other, the one reflected in the reports of the European Commission and the European Parliament, which speak of interference by organized criminal networks in state administration, shortcomings in the rule of law, violations of minority rights and delays in reforms.
It is no coincidence, moreover, that roughly one million citizens have left the country during Rama’s time in office. These, ultimately, are the two Albanias. The question is not which one is projected, but which one prevails.
As a postscript, I would like to mention that Rama also said, in the Kathimerini interview, that “If I had Greek roots, I would be very happy and proud, but I do not.” In the Greek General State Archives, however, there is a certificate issued by the priests of the village of Vouno in Himara, dated October 9, 1846. It states that in 1824-1825, dozens of men from Vouno fought alongside Spyros Milios in Messolonghi. Three of them – Spyros, Giannis and Fotos Kolekas – are direct ancestors of Aneta Koleka, Rama’s late mother. So, the Albanian prime minister can now take pride in his Greek roots, too.
Dionysios-Fredi Beleri is a European Parliament member for Greece’s New Democracy party.