Are the Greek - Albanian relationship in crisis?

After blocking from the Albanian parliament the agreement for sea borders and continental shelf, the Albanian Greek relationship began new diplomatic crisis which resemble the early of 20th century.

A deal between Greece and Albania that aimed to settle a longstanding disagreement between the two countries over their sea borders and continental shelf rights could be scuppered by a legal challenge being mounted by opposition parties in Tirana, last October.

The agreement, signed in April by then Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and his counterpart Sali Berisha, was due to be ratified by the country’s parliament on November.

However, Socialist opposition leader Edi Rama says the deal, which enforces a clear delineation in the Ionian Sea, lacks transparency and damages Albania’s sovereignty. Six parties are due to file an appeal with the country’s Constitutional Court to stop the accord being approved.

The Socialists’ campaign is seen as part of a wider effort to challenge Berisha’s government, which the opposition claims won June’s parliamentary elections thanks to voting irregularities.

Archives, the Greek Albanian relations

BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 4-4-36
TITLE:             Lifting Of The Greek-Albanian State Of War
BY:                Louis Zanga
DATE:              1987-9-3
COUNTRY:           Albania
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  RAD Background Report/152

RADIO FREE EUROPE Research

RAD Background Report/152
(East-West Relations)
3 September 1987


LIFTING OF THE GREEK-ALBANIAN
STATE OF WAR

by Louis Zanga

Summary: The "state of war" that has existed
between Greece and Albania since 1940 has
finally been revoked by an act of the Greek
cabinet. This formality now opens the way for a
complete normalization of relations between
these two neighboring countries, a process that
began in 1971 with the establishment of
diplomatic relations between Athens and Tirana.

* * *

Athens's decision to end its de jure "state of war" with
Albania is the final hurdle on the way to full normalization of
relations between the two countries.1 The decision is a major
success for Albanian diplomacy and an important step in Tirana's
emergence from its long period of self-imposed isolation. The
state of war between the two countries was a anachronism from
the Second World War and was symbolic inasmuch as the two sides
re-established diplomatic relations in 1971 and have greatly
improved relations generally, particularly in the past few
years. Still, the step taken by the Greek cabinet is an
important decision that has already been welcomed by both
sides.2

A Brief History. In April 1939 Albania was invaded by
Fascist Italy, and King Victor Emmanuel took the title of King
of Albania. The country was turned into a province of Italy and
was intended to serve as a base for an Italian attack on Greece,
which took place in October 1940. By early December the Italian
armies had been driven back into Albania, and the Greek forces
took over about half the country. The Italians regained their
position only when the Nazis overran both Greece and Yugoslavia
in April 1941.

The Italo-Greek war resulted in an embitterment of
Greek-Albanian relations that was to last for almost a half a
century. When his country was attacked, Greek Prime Minister
Yanis Metaxas said that the Greeks were fighting not only to
defend their country but also to liberate Albania. In their
moment of triumph, however, the Greek forces are said by some
observers to have acted less like liberators than conquerors who
had come to secure the return of large Albanian provinces to
Greece.

A purely Greek administration was set up in Korce,
Gjirokaster, and other occupied areas. The original Albanian
enthusiasm for the advancing Greeks diminished greatly when it
became apparent that the Greek government of the day was, in
fact, reviving its old claim on southern Albania (the so-called
Northern Epirus), which had been rejected in the peace
settlement of 1919.3 The issue was to poison relations between
the two countries for many years to come.

The Friendship Greek Albania Agreement of 1996

The main general Agreement between Greece and Albania is the Friendship,
Cooperation, Good Neighbourliness and Security Agreement signed on
21st March 1996, (ratified by Law 2568/ Government Gazette A8/13.1.1998).

Le Monde Diplomatic

Independence for Kosovo: the domino effect

What borders for Albania?

by Jean-Arnault Dérens
Le Monde Diplomatic

In 1878 at the Congress of Berlin the German chancellor Bismarck declared that Albania was no more than “a geographical expression”. In the same year, however, influential delegates from the Albanian regions of the Ottoman empire gathered to found the League of Prizren, establishing the first modern claims to national status. Austria-Hungary defended the Albanian claims in the years that followed, in a standoff with Serbia and Greece who had entered alliances with Great Britain, France and Russia.

Ismail Qemal proclaimed a first, and ephemeral, Albanian republic at Vlora in 1912. But a year later the London Peace Conference created the Kingdom of Albania over only half of the regions with Albanian populations. The treaty also split Kosovo (predominantly Albanian) between Serbia and Montenegro. The Albanians have never accepted the prejudice to their people, and today its nationalists are intent on “rectifying” the “historical injustice”.

It is true that there was little guarantee of a future for the state of Albania at the time. It almost disappeared in the first world war, and there was no real settlement on its borders until the treaty of 1926, which was based on doubtful logic. The town of Gjakovë/Gjakova, for example, became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, despite the small size of its Serbian population. Similarly, territory that had always been part of the important municipality of Debar/Dibra was shared between the kingdom and Albania; today the city is part of the Republic of Macedonia, although its traditional hinterland lies in Albania (around the town of Peshkopi).

There are two issues intertwined here. The delicate balance between Albania’s neighbours (Montenegro, Serbia and Greece) and their powerful protectors had an influence on the definition of Albanian territoriality, as did Italy’s historical claims over the Albanian coastline. Also there are the problematic notions of an “Albanian region” or “Albanian cultural area”. Albanians have always lived in the midst of other national communities in these areas. Can we say that this or that town is part of the Albanian world because 50%, 60% or 80% of its inhabitants are Albanian? What percentage do we take and, more particularly, what scale of settlement do we include?

Blog in Albanian, see comments about the issue;

http://www.shekulli.com.al/2009/11/08/kuvendi-loje-me-kalendaret-per-te-shmangur-deklaraten-mbi-shtyrjen-e-ratifikimit-te-paktit-detar.html