Drugs, Dollars, Diplomacy/ German Documentary: Is Albania a Vacation Paradise or a Gangster's Paradise?

Albania, between EU talks and structured clans. Right in Europe, and yet in many ways far from Europe. But what kind of country is it? A holiday paradise or a gangster's paradise?

A documentary from the well-known European television network "ARTE" conveys a contradictory picture of what the country's prime minister presents to the West and what is actually happening in Albania.

Gent Strazimiri, currently a candidate for DP MP in Durrës, has said that everything is controlled by Edi Rama.

The Prime Minister controls everything, he controls organized crime, he controls the police, he controls the judiciary.

Aleksandra Bogdani, a BIRN journalist, said that “we are becoming like a miniature Russia.”

Finally - a refugee camp for the EU - outside the EU. This makes the autocratic Prime Minister Edi Rama increasingly indispensable to the EU, the documentary continues.

"We have our role to play and we play as Europeans ," Prime Minister Edi Rama told "ARTE".

Drugs, the dollar, diplomacy... Is Albania ready for the EU? And is Europe ready for Albania?

The well-known television network also interviewed the leader of the Democratic Party, Sali Berisha, at the time he was placed under house arrest under charges brought by SPAK.

I am a political prisoner in my own home. I am a prisoner in my own home without any criminal charges. The political prosecution, under strong pressure from Rama, after a year-long investigation and finding zero, zero violations of the law. This is a kind of coup against the power of parliament.

Since the fall of communism, Albania has struggled with corruption and organized crime. Despite a multi-party system, senior opposition figures are in prison. For 11 years, all power has been concentrated in the hands of Prime Minister Edi Rama, a close ally of the West.

Edi Rama is perhaps the most colorful politician in Europe. A socialist who doesn't follow convention and likes to be in the spotlight.

But is Albania a country that has problems with corruption?

Rama himself has admitted that today, Albania has corruption, referring to MPs, former ministers of his government cabinet, and mayors who are now behind bars.

Of course it is. Undoubtedly. Is Albania a country that today has much more capacity to fight corruption, much more transparency in many years, much more guarantees against corruption? Of course. Because otherwise we would not be talking about justice here, we would not be getting results and we would not be talking about people connected to the government or the party in power or being in government, and I am talking about my government that has ended up behind bars, for the first time in history.

From the balcony of his apartment, while speaking to journalists from the well-known television network, Berisha pointed out the tall towers that dominate the view in every corner of Tirana.

The Democratic leader described them as drug monuments.

Look at these tall towers. What do they do, what are they? They are all monuments to drugs and corruption.

But Edi Rama has once again played his most valuable card: he presents himself as a European who takes on problems with selflessness. And who thus makes himself indispensable to the West.