Albanian Greens Press Parliament on Waste Imports

Environmentalist protesters rallied at dawn on Thursday in front of Albania's parliament to urge ruling party MPs not to push for another vote on a controversial law on waste imports.

Greens fear the MPs intend to adopt the law once again after President Bujar Nishani in mid-October refused to authorize it.

Tensions rose at 7am Thursday, some hours before the parliamentary session was due to start when police removed some of the tents of the overnight protesters, courting their disapproval. Two were taken into custody and released some hours later.

Hundreds more joined the overight campers on Thursday morning as MPs were entering the building for the session, urging them to withdraw a law that they claim could turn the country into Europe's garbage dump.

Lavdosh Ferruni, a well-known activist leading the protest, told BIRN that they will continue with the protests until the law is dumped for good.

"We will gather again the moment that MPs try to return the law to parliament; we are going to use every democratic means to stop this from happening," he said.

As MPs in parliament discussed the initiative, Ben Blushi, MP and founder of the opposition Libra Party, said he doubted MPs from the ruling parties would push the law into force as they were far from united over it.

Only 63 of the 98 MPs present in the chamber backed the draft law on September. However, since the President declined to sign the draft into law and returned it to parliament, at least 71 of the total of 140 votes in parliament are now required for it to become law.

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