Albania

Photo: Wikimedia/Narih Lee

The latest report by Reporters Without Borders published on Thursday noted significant declines over the past year in levels of press freedom in Serbia, Albania and Moldova while the situation was improving in North Macedonia, Croatia and Kosovo.

Currently, a group of 108 women and children from Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia want to return to the Balkans from the Al Hol camp. There are a small number of ethnic Albanian families in two other camps in Syria.

An Albanian biometric passport. Photo courtesy: Bevis Fusha / Safran

It comes after parliament in the Netherlands voted to deploy the so-called Emergency Break Mechanism for Albania due to concerns about rising criminal activity by Albanian nationals in the country.

"The move by the Dutch parliament is unprecedented, because as far as I know, previously has not been such a demand for the Western Balkans and our countries," he said.

Less than a week after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras warned Albania that Tirana's moves to seize seaside properties of members of the Greek minority in the city of Himara will hinder Tirana's EU course, Tsipras discussed the issue in a telephone conversation with his Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama, today.

Bidding to defuse recent tensions, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke on the phone with his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama on Thursday, in the wake of last week's bilateral crisis sparked by a call published in the Albanian government gazette for the seizure of properties belonging to members of the ethnic Greek minority in the town of Himara.

"When the line of women and children departed toward Gjakova/Djakovica, they started punching us. One person, Isuf Nushi, was wounded by the grenades and they cut his body with knives," Tahir Krasniqi told BIRN.

A total of 119 men were separated into four groups.

The new ethnic Albanian mayor of Tuzi in Montenegro says the country's Albanian minority must unite in the same way in the next parliamentary elections if they want to achieve anything.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras reacted strongly to a move by the Albanian government of Edi Rama to effectively expropriate large tracts of prime seaside properties owned by members of the Greek minority in the upscale coastline town of Himara and neighbouring Sarande.

The Albanian government removed from its gazette a law that would allow the arbitrary nationalization of land belonging to the ethnic Greek families in the south of the country, a diplomatic source from the Greek foreign ministry said on Saturday.