As the coronavirus widens fractures in the EU, hopes of a larger Europe fade
By Andrea Dudik and Flavia Krause-Jackson
The Albanian village of Shishtavec, near the rugged mountains that mark the border with Kosovo, is in the poorest corner of one of Europe’s poorest countries. Locals here bond over complaints about corruption and stories of relatives building their futures in Western Europe. There’s something else they share: a dream that one day they, too, will be allowed to integrate with the rest of the continent.
“Everyone, even small kids, say they want to join the European Union,” says 34-year-old Rakan, a farmer who speaks a little English, as well as Albanian, Bulgarian, and some German. “But it’s impossible because too much has to change.”
Albania has been knocking at the EU’s door for more than a decade, and this spring, it finally seemed to open. On March 25, governments in the 27-nation bloc gave their approval for accession negotiations with Albania and its neighbor North Macedonia. But as the coronavirus devastates even Europe’s richest economies, the Albanian dream looks more elusive than ever.
Amid severe outbreaks of Covid-19 in Italy and Spain, the EU is struggling to keep its current members united. Member states have reintroduced border controls to stop the free flow of people and are wrangling over whether to issue joint “corona bonds” to pay for the economic damage left by the virus. This fragility means that Albania, a majority Muslim country of 2.9 million and an average monthly wage of $493, is unlikely to become a member anytime soon.
“The European Union is preoccupied with the pandemic and with saving its economies, and it doesn’t have internal capacity to deal with any enlargement process, even if a candidate country were to fulfill all entry criteria,’’ says Zarko Puhovski, a political scientist at the University of Zagreb.
Like his EU counterparts, Albania’s prime minister, Edi Rama, introduced restrictions on people coming in and out of the country. But he was livid when the EU restricted exports of medical supplies to non-members. “The EU cannot and should in no way exclude the western Balkans from trade access for these essential goods for the health of our people,” local media reported him as saying. (As of April 16, Albania reported 518 cases of Covid-19 and 26 deaths from it.)
Albanians remember what it’s like to be cut off from other parts of the world. The country was known as Europe’s North Korea under Enver Hoxha, the communist dictator who ruled from 1944 until his death in 1985. Initially aligned with the Soviet Union and later with China, Hoxha parted ways with both, blaming them for growing too soft in their Marxist-Leninist principles.
During a time that many Albanians now call an “experiment,” food was rationed. Travel was banned. Cars and unlimited hot water were reserved for the carefully selected few. Tens of thousands of concrete bunkers—now mostly deserted—were built around the countryside and by the Adriatic Sea, supposedly to protect the nation from its enemies.
After communism fell in 1990, Albania went through a volatile period of economic collapse and social unrest. Some 800,000 Albanians left for abroad, creating a vital diaspora that still supports many families back home. Then a series of economic and political reforms and a staunch pro-western orientation turned things around, earning the country membership in NATO in 2009. It applied to join the EU the same year.
“From the 1990s, the motto was to join the EU, and this perspective has never changed,” says Luljeta Minxhozi, the vice governor of the central bank in the capital, Tirana. “In all our history, all the good things have come from the West.”
At the height of the isolationist period, Albanians looked for inspiration across the Adriatic to Italy. Many secretly tuned in to Italian radio and television, despite the threat of repercussions if discovered. Most Albanian adults today speak fluent Italian, and almost all back membership in the EU, with support at 97%, according to polls.
Its lack of interest in an alliance with Russia sets Albania apart from most other states in the western Balkans. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lamented this pro-western orientation in February after meeting with Rama. The nations could have closer ties if Albania didn’t feel so obliged to its western allies, he said. “It’s not obligation, it’s choice,” Rama corrected Lavrov at the briefing in Moscow.
France and the Netherlands halted Albania’s talks with the EU last year because of its problems with corruption and organized crime and stuttering reforms. Albania has since made some progress, but it “is not in a great place in regards to rule of law and political pluralism,” says Puhovski. “It has still to do a lot of work in that area.”
In a makeshift bar in Shishtavec one night in late February, men huddled around a stove to play cards, wearing layers of clothing to keep warm. They talked about the hundreds who had left the village over the years, tired of waiting for Europe to come to them. The deck of cards adorned with the Union Jack was a gift, one man said—from a relative who is now living in the U.K. (Bloomberg, April 16, 2020)
