EU urges Albanian government, opposition to find solution to standoff

The European Union has urged government and opposition leaders in Albania to find a "national, sustainable and imminent" way forward to a solution to the standoff over opposition allegations of fraud in the June 2009 elections.

On May 19 2010, a group of socialist MPs and their supporters who had been on hunger strike in Tirana, where a makeshift tent camp has been erected by protesters, ended their hunger strike – and the following day prime minister Sali Berisha and opposition leader Edi Rama met for dinner in Strasbourg at an event arranged by European Parliament centre-right leader Joseph Daul and socialist group leader Martin Schulz.

Media reports from the Albanian capital on May 20 quoted Rama, who is also mayor of Tirana, as saying that his group was ready to negotiate an end to the crisis to open the way for transparency and towards European integration.

The dinner arranged by Schulz and Daul represented an invitation to the rival Albanian leaders to work towards a solution brokered at European level.

In a statement on May 20, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele said that they supported the Daul-Schulz initiative.

"Albania stands at a crucial moment on its path towards EU integration," Ashton and Fuele said in a joint statement in Brussels.

"The EU is seriously concerned about the continuing political stalemate. We are concerned about the dysfunctional parliament and the possible systemic effects across their institutions," Ashton and Fuele said.

It was high time to find a solution to the crisis that would stand the test of time, the statement said.

"Albania’s prospects should not be further affected by a continuation of the status quo," the statement said, calling on Berisha and Rama to "take responsibility for finding a national, sustainable and imminent way forward in line with the aspirations of the citizens of Albania, the constitution and the principle of transparency".