Albania Ruling Party Rejects Investigations of Strategic Investments

Socialist Party MPs said on Thursday that an opposition request to investigate controversial strategic investments in the country's coastal areas should be rejected on a technicality, arguing that supporting signatures wasn't collected in a proper way.

This was the second time that the Socialists moved to block the initiative that came from part of the divided opposition Democratic Party.

Taulant Balla, head of the Socialist Party parliamentary group, said that the request should be dismissed due to the fact that the signatures were transferred improperly from another document.

The opposition first filed the motion in May with the 35 required signatures. But hours before the vote, one of the signatories retracted his support and the motion was dismissed.

Two other opposition MPs signed to substitute the initial signature. But according to Balla, the signatures cannot be transferred from the old request to a new request, so the second one must also be dismissed.

"You are aiming to investigate the legality of the implementation of the law and you are trying to do that in an illegal way," Balla said in parliament.

Jorida Tabaku, an opposition MP, told BIRN that signatures are now being collected again and a new request will be filed soon.

The opposition is currently divided between a group of MPs representing the official Democratic Party and a new one, supporting the Refoundation by the former Prime Minister and President Sali Berisha, who has been barred entry to US due to his alleged involvement in corruption.

The two groups have competing parliamentary agendas so for the opposition it is difficult to achieve the minimum required signatures to establish an investigative committee.

The government is...