Athens increases pressure on Tirana
Greece blocking Albania’s EU goal as long as case of jailed ethnic Greek mayor-elect isn’t resolved
The visit paid on Tuesday to Tirana by Greece’s State Minister Stavros Papastavrou to the incarcerated ethnic Greek mayor-elect of Himare in southern Albania and the choice not to meet with Albanian officials was a clear message to the government of Edi Rama regarding Athens’ intentions with regard to the fate of Fredi Beleri, who has remained in custody for seven months on voting fraud charges.
The visit came as Athens kept up the pressure on Tirana, threatening a permanent blockade on Albania’s EU accession perspective because of the Beleri affair.
“Himare is the only municipality in all of Europe where the defeated mayor continues to exercise power, while the elected mayor is deprived of his democratic right to be sworn in,” Papastavrou said immediately after his meeting with Beleri.
Papastavrou was very precise in the wording he used, stressing that “in Himare, the principle of popular sovereignty has not yet been applied.”
“We stand by Fredi Beleri for his right to a fair trial, which continues tomorrow [Wednesday]. We want his presumption of innocence to be fully respected by the Albanian justice system. A fair solution must be found, within the framework of the European acquis, the rule of law and the principle of good neighborliness, so that democratic normality is restored in Himare,” said Papastavrou, who also met in Tirana with Greek Ambassador Konstantina Kamitsi, Vangelis Doules, president of the Greek Minority Unity for Human Rights Party (known as KEAD in Greece), and other members of the Greek minority.
During his stay in Tirana, Papastavrou did not meet with any member of the Rama government.
The visit came on the back of Athens’ recent decision not to consent to a joint letter from the 27 EU member-states to Albania to start negotiations of the first set of accession chapters on fundamental issues, signaling Greece’s determination to block Tirana’s accession perspective as long as Beleri is not sworn in to the office of mayor of Himare. Beleri had been arrested just before the municipal elections in Himare, which he won.
There is belief among several officials in Tirana that the government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis will eventually bow to pressure from the US and EU partners, who believe that enlargement in the Western Balkans should take place immediately.
