"Der Spiegel", Rama's slap: Corruption at all levels and links to organized crime

"Ursula von der Leyen calls him 'dear Eddie', which is already a signal," says Frauke Seebass of the Brussels office of the Foundation for Science and Politics: "You have to see the Rama phenomenon in a wider context – from the perspective of the EU, it is a matter of a pragmatic approach to stabilize the Western Balkans; unlike Aleksandar Vucic in Serbia, it is considered more lenient; for this reason, it has been decided to turn a blind eye , if not two."

Even the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, honored him with his visit to the Albanian capital, Tirana, in February and expressed praise for "Edin" - especially for his justice reform: "Corrupt officials are being held accountable," he said. They blink. "Members of organized crime are going to prison and losing their assets. This is a big change."

However, in the latest annual report from Blinken's office, the US State Department, it sounds different.

It says that in 2023, in the NATO member country Albania, there was "corruption in all sectors and at all levels of government."

In all.

That means: even at the top. Rama's political opponents claim that he has turned the country into an autocracy dominated by drug money. More precisely: he has tolerated the empowerment of organized crime.

The Prime Minister denies these accusations.

When confronted with similar accusations by SPIEGEL, the prime minister called late in the evening and tried to influence the reporting: He felt the accusations were undeserved, insulting and damaging to his country's reputation.

How can it happen, Rama was asked by an Italian journalist in June, that his closest circle, one after another, are being arrested for corruption, including various ministers, while he himself is still in office?

The cold answer of the Albanian Prime Minister: "There are pigs in every forest."

The stabilizer of the Balkans

Rama is seen from the western point of view as a stabilizer in the Balkans. Especially his model negotiated with Meloni has aroused interest even beyond Italy: the plan to shelter in Albanian territory refugees and migrants caught in Italian Mediterranean waters to determine if they are worthy of asylum.

The more popular Rama becomes abroad, the more anger grows in his inner circle. Those who know too much and have too much to lose speak only on condition of anonymity.

Others take to the streets.

In July, angry demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails at Rama's office in Tirana. The burnt stairs have already been cleared.

Is Rama getting rich at the expense of others?

"From Brussels' perspective, this is not that important," says Seebass: "Albania's EU membership is not on the agenda at the moment."

The prime minister himself told the Italian state television Rai: "I honestly don't think that politics in Albania has been poisoned by the mafia." Ahmetaj's claim that mafia bosses come and go from his office is a slander that is both untrue and harmful since "people tend to believe lies more than the truth."

Rama worries about the reputation of his country. "When it comes to EU membership, our patience is almost infinite," the prime minister assured SPIEGEL two years ago in his villa on the Adriatic: Albania was an isolated dictatorship, "the North Korea of ??Europe, where at the end of in the eighties it was still dangerous to listen to the Beatles. That's why I claim that we, in absolute terms, have achieved more in these 30 years than any other country in Europe."

Poverty, unemployment, emigration

Statistics show the opposite. Since 1991, according to the data of the Institute of Statistics of Albania, more than one third of the population of 3.3 million inhabitants has emigrated from the country. The average salary is around 750 euros. Almost a third of the young people who are left are unemployed.

*Abridged from Der Spiegel