Albania (Washington Insider Magazine) -Despite the backdrop of a global Covid-19 pandemic, Albania has enjoyed a number of foreign policy achievements over the past 18 months. It has been a successful period within the foreign policy sphere for the small former Communist nation – which now is firmly integrated into NATO.
Albania’s profile on the international stage has blossomed in 2020 and 2021. Albania chaired the Organization for Security and Copperation Cooperation in Europe in 2020, with Prime Minister Rama serving as the ‘Chairperson-in-office.’ In May 2021, Albania served as a key host of the NATO military exercise ‘Defender 21’, one of the largest military exercises to be held in the Balkans since the Second World War.
In June 2021, Albania received the nod to serve a two-year term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council alongside Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates which begins in January 2022.
Only days ago, Albania together with Kosovo and North Macedonia were among the first countries to heed U.S. calls for assistance in offering sanctuary to thousands of Afghan refugees fleeing the turmoil of the Taliban takeover. Three thousand Afghans will receive temporary refuge in Albania until the U.S. finalizes entry visas.
The Albanian government has also been active at the regional level. In late July 2021, Prime Minister Rama held talks with Western Balkan counterparts Prime Minister Zoran Zaev of North Macedonia and President Aleksander Vucic of Serbia to push forward the ‘Open Balkans’ project to open up their respective frontiers to goods, services and people by 2023. This has been welcomed as a positive step by the European Union, which has itself advanced the ‘Berlin Process’ – a 2014 agreement to foster greater integration and cooperation among Western Balkan countries. Albania, a candidate for EU membership, had its request for accession talks approved by EU ministers in 2020.
While it should be noted that the ‘Open Balkans’ project is not supported by all Western Balkan nations, most notably Kosovo, which opposes any closer ties between Albania and Serbia – as Serbia continues to withhold recognition of Kosovo’s independence – the Albanian government still has demonstrated recently that it is a proactive force globally and regionally.
These foreign policy successes ought to be lauded. Yet Albania might yet achieve even more internationally by fortifying its domestic image and institutions. Albania continues to have an image problem – one associated with corruption, a lack of transparency, a business climate of unfair competition, a dishonest judicial system, and a disregard for civil society demands. In 2020, Transparency International ranked Albania 104th in the world in terms of perception of corruption, alongside El Salvador and below Colombia, Peru, and Ethiopia.
In this regard, the United States and the European Union have actively supported the Albanian government’s Special Prosecution Office against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) and SPAK’s attempt to ferret out corruption in the political system, the judiciary and within the economic realm. American involvement includes the recent use by the Department of State of its ‘Section 7031 (c)’ instrument to ‘publicly designate’ Albania’s former President and Prime Minister Sali Berisha as being involved in significant corruption this past May and to ban Berisha and his family members from entering the United States.
A perceived reduction in corruption will help improve Albania’s economic activity and assist in attracting foreign investment. According to World Bank data, Albania attracted only $1.2 billion in FDI in 2019. Though this is more than the approximately $300 million attracted by Kosovo and the $400 million attracted by Montenegro, it is only around one quarter of the $4 billion attracted by Serbia – though Albania has a population of 3 million to Serbia’s 7 million.
The recent $2 billion investment in the Port of Durres by the company Emaar from the United Arab Emirates, announced in December 2020, is a welcome boon to Albania the country needs to further foster the conditions to attract more FDI from the U.S. and other Western countries.
Additionally, addressing civil society concerns, particularly in the area of the environment, will remain a litmus test in determining Albania’s ability to attract international investment in the coming years. The Albanian government has been criticized for its insensitivity on that front, especially concerning the multiple projects begun along the Vjosa River, including hydropower plants and dams, as well as oil exploration at the river’s basin. Greater responsiveness to local and global critics regarding the potential damage to the ecosystem, and remedial actions to allay such concerns will help buttress Albania’s international image.
Thirty years after the fall of Communism, Albania has emerged as a more active participant in foreign affairs both within the Western Balkans and globally. The current government has achieved several recent foreign policy wins. Be that as it may, in order to guarantee that Albania’s reputation as a foreign policy player endures the Albanian government must continue to improve its image and institutions by forcefully tackling corruption, championing greater transparency, creating a more open business climate, and demonstrating greater responsiveness to citizens on issues that matter to them.
