Albania's parliament

Opposition protesters throw flares while police officers protect Albania's parliament on 21 February 2019. Photo: Gjergj Erebara/BIRN

Opposition parties summoned their protesters on Thursday morning to near the parliament in Tirana, where police deployed about 1,000 officers, equipped with gas masks and some in full anti-riot gear.

It was expected to be an eventful political season when Albania's parliament reopened earlier this month, with an agenda of reforms needed to open the way for the start of EU membership negotiations next June.

After the Council of Europe postponed a decision on this issue last June, reforms that need cross-party agreement, such as electoral reform, have become a matter of urgency.

Aqif Rakipi, a powerful politician in the Elbasan region from the Justice, Unity and Integration Party, PDIU, in central Albania, lost his mandate as a member of Albania's parliament on Friday, after prosecutors confirmed his role in a crime involving stolen goods in Italy in 1998.

Bulgaria is pushing for official recognition of a Bulgarian minority in Kosovo, not only as a follow-on to the recent recognition of a Bulgarian minority in Albania, but as part of "regular state policy", the head of the State Agency for Bulgarians, Petar Haralampiev, told BIRN on Friday.

MEPs from different countries and political parties are preparing a letter to the parliament of Albania, urging the country to recognize the Bulgarian national minority, reported bTV. 

Albania's parliament will complete the first round of electing a new President on Wednesday afternoon, even though no candidate will be up for a vote.

An Administrative Court in Tirana has ordered Albania's main intelligence agency, SHISH, to de-classify reports of the former Communist-era Sigurimi secret police and its data on the number of people kept under surveillance during the last decade of the Communist regime.  

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.

Albania's parliament on Thursday approved the request of 35 opposition MPs to create a commission of inquiry into the mysterious electronic device "IMSI Catcher", which some claim has been used to illegally intercept communications.

Ahead of a major summit of Albanian diaspora communities from around the world, Albania is mulling the best ways of utilizing its large diaspora.

On November 2016, for the first time, the government plans to hold the first-ever diaspora summit, also marking 25 years of post-communist migration.