Αναζήτηση
Athens and Tirana have drafted a roadmap for solving thorny bilateral issues by springtime, in order to open the way for the EU to announce a date for the start of accession talks with Albania.
The two sides have put all issues on the table in order to reach a comprehensive settlement.
That was the backdrop of today’s talks between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Albanian PM Edi Rama in Davos, Switzerland, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.
The leaders reviewed the results of two days of talks between Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias and Albanian counterpart Ditmir Bushati in Korca, southeastern Albania.
A source says that Athens would agree to certain “technical adjustments” to a 2009 agreement on setting maritime boundaries in order to ensure its implementation.
In the same framework, Athens is mulling the prospect of extending its sea boundaries to 12 nautical miles, as is its right under international law (though it would be more correct to do this for the entire western part of Greece, and not just with Albania).
The 2009 agreement fully respects the median line between the two countries, according to the principle of equidistance.
However, the agreement was ruled unconstitutional by the Albanian Constitutional Court, on the basis of dubious legal reasoning.
It was the current prime minister, Edi Rama, who as opposition leader raised the issue of constitutionality, though he had initially expressed no objections.
In the interim, Albania delivered to Athens a series of diplomatic notes verbales over the issue.
Rama, after a string of anti-Greek statements, adopted a different tack just two days ago, declaring that all problems can be resolved by spring.
“We hope to successfully complete this dialogue and enter into a new era of strategic cooperation,” Rama said in an interview with Report TV.
Three bundles of issues
The first package of issues is the exhumation of fallen Greek soldiers in Albania and military cemeteries, the issue of lifting the formally continuing state of war between the two countries since 1940, and Albania’s interest in the Cham issue, which Greek foreign ministry sources say is not on the agenda, though it has not been officially denied.
The second bundle is the rights of the Greek minority in Albania and, according to Bushati, the rights of Albanians living in Greece.
Athens has for now placed the weight on moves such as the exhumation of the remains of Greek soldiers who fell in the Greco-Italian war of 1940-1941.
While that is an important development, a state of war between Greece and Albania is still formally in effect, and the Greek government has not revealed its intentions regarding whether it is prepared to lift it.
The third issue is the precise delineation of the Greece-Albania land borders.
Angelos Athanasopoulos
