Census in Albania, the issue of migrants remains a problem!
Pollo: About 800 thousand immigrants will have difficulties from Greece to come to declare census
During an interview in "ALSAT TV" Minister responsible for Population count Genc Pollo, said that "would be difficulties for migrants who make up about 800 thousand in Greece, to come in the spring of next year's for self declaration census."
Pollo comments were made after attempts by Albanian nationalists, to prevent the registration of the population on ethnic and religious grounds.
"There is no risk for those immigrants who have changed religion and nationality and living in Greece. They do not come to vote and not to plead" Pollo noted.
Meanwhile referring to Albania, the biggest newspaper in Europe, "Le Monde Diplomatic", in an article last year, writes that the identity of the population in Albania and it borders, are still in question as long as Albania has remained at low levels of creative democratic states in the region".
What borders for Albania?
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?
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