handy data. hope to see additional superior posts in the future….

On immigration: many Albanians are seeing that by the time taxes, rent, and all the expenses are paid in Italy and Greece one barely saves 50 euros a month. Albania is poor but all Albanians have a home there (many are brand new as well) and expenses are non-existent when compared to Western Europe. You can live very comfortably with an extra $200-300 a month in an Albanian village with barely no taxes, growing your own raki, veggies, meat, fruits, milk, cheese etc etc etc. Some have already sold land and stand to gain even more as tourism picks up. Many have parents with pensions as well so combined with strict immigration enforcements and very few benefits, it makes no sense going to Italy. You work a day here and there and live even better in Albania, among your people.

Let’s hope that in 3-5 years Albanians will serve the western tourists, in Albania and not Greece or Italy. The railway bothers me as well; it would have been much easier to add at the same time as the road, but maybe they panicked at the sum. $1 Billion for the road was pushing Albanian limits as well. On the positive side, MK will probably choose Durres as its port too, thanks to economic advantages and some MK-Albanian pressure, making Albania an important hub.

On pop: Serbia has the 4th OLDEST population in the world, and a horrible economy, meaning it probably stands to drop more as it improves. They have as many 15 year olds as 60 years olds, a demographic nightmare, especially since the new generation is doomed as well.

Nice comments anyway.

What’s more interesting is that the few months that Kosovans stayed in Albania have contributed more than maybe years/decades of open borders. There are now relatively strong ties between many hosting families and the Kosovans they hosted (marriages, regular visits on special occasions etc.).

And Albania in 1999 was a bit of a mess. Much of the destruction of the 1997 pyramid riots was still visible.

I was in Albania during the Kosovo War and I was not aware of locals finding Kosovo Albanians arrogant and ungrateful. On what ground do you base your assertion?

As for Greater Albania (or Ethnic Albania, as the local map producers tend to call it) I think your focus is too static. Albanians may now be richer than Kosovars, but when Albania was flooded with refugees in 1999 it were the Kosovars who were astonished by the backwardness and poverty of the Albanians while many Albanians found the Kosovars arrogant and ungrateful. So things can change very fast.

And – as German reunification shows – in these kind of things people tend not to be stingy.

There is also the dynamics of ethnic conflict. Macedonias Albanians may now seem to resign in being part of Macedonia. But what happens when Kosovo’s status has been settled and there is now longer a need for all those unemployed fighters to stay home? They go to Macedonia, kill a few cops, the Macedonian police reacts and before you know it you have a polarisation were the Albanians are like one man behind separatist demands.

The border between Kosovo and Albania is already quite open. My expectation is that formal unification will be postponed as long as there are other more urgent nationalistic projects (recognition of Kosovo, Presevo, Macedonia). Whether we will see in the end a unification may also depend on local politics: maybe Berisha will find it one day an easy way to extend his northern power base.