Greece and Albania are having a small diplomatic tiff. If reading about that sort of thing interests you, read on.
So: two weeks ago, Greek President Karolos Papoulias’ was scheduled to meet with Albanian President Alfred Moisiu, in the southern Albanian town of Sarande. I’m pretty sure this was the first meeting of Greek [...]

Taking a break from the German elections, I ran across this recent article over at Radio Free Europe. Short version: EU accession for the Western Balkans (Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia and Albania) is stalling.
All of these five states would like to be part of the EU, but — with the partial exception of Croatia [...]

Earlier this year, Eurobarometer started asking members what they thought about future EU expansion. The results (which can be found here, as a pdf) were pretty interesting.
52% of Europeans support membership for Croatia, while only 34% oppose it. (War criminals? What war criminals?) And 50% support membership for Bulgaria. But [...]

Back in July, I posted about the Parliamentary elections in Albania. Dedicated readers may recall that the Socialist government of PM Fatos Nano lost, and the opposition Democrats (under former PM Sali Berisha) won… but that Nano was refusing to concede defeat.
Well, he finally did. It took nearly two months, and three special [...]

2000-2004: Under the rule of the Social Democrat Party (PSD) and Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, Romania enjoys four consecutive years of rapid economic growth. Romania’s GDP increases by an average of nearly 6% per year; for the first time since the end of Communism, the country has four years without a recession. [...]

Former Prime Minister Sali Berisha won a surprise upset victory in the Albanian elections earlier this month.
This is not particularly welcome news for anyone outside of Albania. Berisha, who was Albania’s chief executive from 1990 to 1997, is remembered as a corrupt and erratic authoritarian who ran a government of cronies, best remembered for [...]

A few weeks back, I blogged a little about the upcoming elections in Albania. Here’s a bit more.
The elections are expected to be close, because the ruling Socialist Party is split. The larger faction supports the current Prime Minister, Fatos Nano. But a breakaway group, under an ex-weightlifter named Ilir Meta, has [...]

So Albania is having a general election. The voters will go to the polls on July 4, in a little over three weeks.
The Albanian electoral system is rather interesting IMO. The Parliament has 140 members. 100 members are elected in “zones”, one-member districts with a first-past-the-post system, rather like Britain. But [...]

Doug Muir here, blogging from Tirana, Albania, where I’ll be for the rest of this week.
Albania is, as we all know, in a dead heat with Moldova for the not-coveted title of Europe’s Poorest Country. But downtown Tirana is surprisingly peppy: coffeeshops, restaurants, tree-lined boulevards, nightclubs, parks. Granted, non-downtown Tirana is concrete blocks [...]