PACE will send Presidential Committee to visit Albania on February 22

At the close of its debate on the functioning of democratic institutions in Albania, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE asked its Presidential Committee, accompanied by the Monitoring Committee's co-rapporteurs for Albania, Jaakko Laakso (Finland, UEL) and David Wilshire (United Kingdom, EDG), to visit Albania un February 22, to help restore political dialogue there, the Council of Europe announced.

The Assembly deplores "the political crisis which has seriously damaged Albanian politics following the parliamentary elections of June 2009, with the Socialist Party-led opposition boycotting the parliament and contesting the political legitimacy of the Democratic Party-led government".

To end this political deadlock, the Assembly called on the Albanian government to set up, without further delay, a parliamentary committee of inquiry into the elections.

The Assembly regrets that the absence of parliamentary dialogue is blocking the reform process, since the governing majority does not have the three-fifths majority required to pass major constitutional reforms; it urges the opposition to return to parliament and fully participate in its work.