Der Spiegel writes about corruption in Albania: Are Europes closing their eyes on Eddie Rama?

Edi Rama, 60, has governed and represented Albania's EU membership candidate for eleven years: tall as a tree, Rama is a man of often moderate behaviour. The guy, waiting for state guests with sneakers and journalists on occasion, naked. A late descendant of a high-level socialist debt. Once a Albanian national basketball player and internationally known as visual artist. For many in the West: Albania's cosmopolite face.

Corruption on All Levels

Even American Secretary of State Antony Blinken had the honour of being in the Albanian capital, in Tirana in February of this year and found praise words for “Edin” ) no less for his reform in justice: corrupt “Offices are now taking responsibility”, said Blinken: “Aparters of organised crime fall into prison and lose their assets, that is a huge change.

Anti-corruption protesters: Anger on the Rise

However, in Blinken's last annual report of the State Department home, things sound different. Of the situation in NATO member Albania in 2023, it says: “there has been corruption in all dictatorships and at all levels of government”.

That means, even the top. Rama's political opponent claims the ruler has long turned his country into a drug-contaminated autism. More precisely, he tolerated the advancement of organised crime. The head of government denies this.

Facing the related charges by SPIEGEL, the prime minister calls late in the evening and tries to influence the report: He perceives the charges as in vain, offensive, and undeservedly damaging to his country.

“Albanian government leader's cold response: “It's a forest without pigs.

Balkan Stabilist

Rama, seen with Western eyes, is considered a stabilizer in the Balkans. Above all, his negotiated model with Melon is seen with interest beyond Italy: the plan to house refugees and immigrants on Albanian soil, as they are caught in Italian Mediterranean waters.

The more popular it becomes abroad, the more anger increases in its nearby environment. Those in the inner circle, who know a lot and risk a lot according to circumstances, speak only with the assurance of anonymity. Others go out on the street. In July, angry protesters threw Molotov cocktails at Rama's official residence in Tirana. The burning signs have already faded.

More, older, remains in downtown Tirana. The pyramid, for example, was a building where the marble statue of dictator Enver Hoxha, created by Eddie Rama's father.

Christaq Rama was a close artist with the system, which proved to have cosigned a death sentence in 1988 as a member of the so-called Popular Presidentium: against opposition poet Havzi Nela, who was later hanged.

Newer, more enlightened times have a symbol of a transparent building made of glass and steel. It's the SPAK headquarters, the anti-corruption prosecution. It was founded in 2019 with the promotion of the US and the EU. The promotion is not considered Rama's favorite. In the decisive battle vote, he probably benefited from the fact that the US ambassador had insisted on personally observing the procedure of a no-confidence vote against the head of government.

VIP Prisons With Fitnes Bid

The former balance of SPAK's authority is such: Rama's first Interior Minister was sentenced to three years and four months in prison for abuse of duty primarily for drug trafficking, at the end for another act. Rama's former environment minister was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for corruption in September 2023. The Deputy Health Minister resigned for abuse of office. His former chief finally went to prison in July 2024 for absorption of EU funds.

Although so-called V prisons already exist in Albania IP, as the BIRN research platform found: department detention centers where socialist prison personalities live in the kitchen, shower, and their master's environments.

However, those from Rama's immediate circle, who threaten such a fate, usually prefer to leave on time. One of them is Arben Ahmetaj, Minister of Economy from 2013, later in finance, and from 2021 as deputy prime minister, number two in the government. By political observers in Tirana, Ahmetaj is seen as a <x0 treasury keeper” and a key figure in the government's governing system. In July 2022, Rama dismissed him according to reports, then Ahmetaj's incriminating materials had been collected. For the conscientious prime minister over the powers of one or another, his early companion threatened to return to danger.

A year later, the Socialist-dominated parliament lifted Ahmetaj's immunity. The delay was reasonable. But the accused of corruption and money laundering had left in time. A few days later, the SPAK issued an international warrant on the fugitive.

Rama system

“Do you mind if I drink cigar?” asks Arben Ahmetaj at the meeting on a cafe roof in the center of Lugano. On the left shines the lake, passersby on the right, and Swiss tourists do the latest shopping.

Ahmetaj is a man who has travelled sufficiently, accustomed to life of luxury, from a young age considered one of the rising stars of Albanian Socialists. He was baptized in his homeland as “tigri”. Despite an international warrant, he is currently enjoying his exile in Lugano and hopes to gain political asylum in Switzerland.

Ahmetaj does not want to say anything about the charges brought against him in his homeland. For example, if it was the one who created ties among organisers of a scandal for Albanian waste-burning plants. There are suspicious projects, very few of which have been realised, but which have cost Albanian taxpayers millions of euros that are counted by trivier. According to independent journalists, the money is said to have ended up in pockets of close circles with the government, but in the media close to them.

Ahmetaj's luxurious voyages, apparently financed by scandal organisers, alternately with his wife and girlfriend, in Milan's five-star hotels, or in Cête dãozur, play only a peripheric role at this meeting. He prefers to speak for Eddie Rama.

So: After eleven years in power, what is Rama's fault for the fact that Albania is still one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, according to Transparency International, despite the billions of Western funding?

Ahmetaj puts a cold cigar on the table and says of his relationship with Rama, which he sometimes calls “Kim Jong Un” in aludium to North Korean dictator: “I'm not ready to be the head of the prime minister. He is the beneficiary of justice reform, which was financed by the US and the EU, now he is using the judiciary against his political opponents and against all who oppose his quest for power”.

The former deputy prime minister has doubts that the Rama system is being quietly tolerated in the West: “I have no idea why Europeans do not want to see what is happening in Albania. They have excellent intelligence services that know in detail what happens, especially for money laundering and organised crime”.

Ahmetaj confirms the investigators' findings, under which Albania had returned to a narco-state fed by drug trafficking during Rama's mandate: the country's “destruction of cannabis between 2014 and 2017 was the prime minister's hidden economic agenda”. The rise of organised crime, fed by this, has massively changed Albania's economy and society: “Rama believes it still controls the criminal environment, but it is currently controlling”.

Are Europeans closing their eyes on Rama?

“Ursula von der Leenen calls dear Eddie”, this is already a signal,” says Frauke Seebasss from the Brussels Science and Policy Foundation office: “You need to see Rama phenomenon in a broader context from the EU. It's a business-like approach to stabilising the Western Balkans. Rama, unlike Aleksandar Vucic in Serbia, is not considered anti-European. It's much more comfortable; therefore it was decided to close one eye, why not both.”

Will Rama be enriched at the expense of others? “From Brussels' perspective, this is not so important,” says Seebass: Albania's “accession to the EU is not about debate in the near future”. / DER SPIEGEEL ) vocalnews. al