Daily Briefing

Daily Briefing

Government Approves €110 Million in German Agreements, Details 7,000-Home Housing Plan

The Newsroom   The Council of Ministers approved three financing agreements with Germany, gave further details of a housing plan covering 7,000 households and extended the government’s “Prania Besnike” public-reception initiative to ministers, at a cabinet meeting on Friday morning. Ministers briefed the press afterwards; the government itself published no consolidated readout. German financing Infrastructure …

Daily Briefing

Lamallari Out; Demo Takes Interior as Rama Folds Local Government Into Ministry

The Newsroom   Prime Minister Edi Rama announced Besfort Lamallari’s removal as Minister of the Interior on Friday and named Ervin Demo to take over the portfolio, with Demo’s local-government responsibilities to be absorbed into the Interior Ministry. Lamallari is set to leave the cabinet without a new ministerial post. The announcement came exactly one …

Daily Briefing

The Wrong Instrument

The Constitutional Court gave parliament a duty and the magistrates a fallback. The Judicial Council took a power the judgment gave to no one, and its supporters asked a prosecutor to punish the officials who declined to go along. By Renada Bici (Legal Desk)   In the first days of September, treasury branches in Kukës …

Daily Briefing

Rexhaj on ABC Albania: Change the Leader and Nothing Changes. The System Changes from the Roots.

Tirana Examiner Newsroom Tirana Examiner’s own political and diplomatic commentator Albatros Rexhaj was the studio guest on ABC Albania’s late-night prime-time news on the evening Prime Minister Edi Rama convened the Socialist Party leadership to review the first weeks of his “Prania Besnike” (“Loyal Presence”) initiative. What follows is the argument he made. Accountability, not …

Daily Briefing

The Argument Is Not in Brussels

Editorial Board   The Prime Minister spent Wednesday arguing with a party that holds ten seats in a parliament of seven hundred and twenty. Two posts, two videos, a Latin proverb from his grandmother, a challenge to Sandro Gozi to be brave and say “This is not dissent. It is violence.” One reply to last …

Daily Briefing

The Speaker’s List

Ana Brnabić has placed a demonstration for men presumed innocent beside state honours for a man finally convicted of genocide. Her argument depends on treating those as the same thing. By Ardit Rada (Tirana)   On Wednesday afternoon, two days after Ratko Mladić was buried in Belgrade, the Speaker of Serbia’s National Assembly published a …

Daily Briefing

Two Capitals in Two Days

Drizan Shala, Security Desk   Major General Jasper Jeffers, commander of the International Stabilization Force for Gaza, was received in Tirana on Tuesday by Ferit Hoxha at the foreign ministry and then by Ermal Nufi at defence. The readouts were short. Hoxha wrote on X that Albania’s participation in the ISF turns into a real …

Daily Briefing

Who Represents Women?

An activist told Iris Luarasi she had forfeited the right to speak for women. Luarasi said her accusers had forfeited the name of activism. Tuesday’s argument was larger than either claim. Tirana Examiner Newsroom   The Assembly of Albania returned from its summer recess at 17:00 on Tuesday and sat for about an hour. In …

Daily Briefing

Albania Joins the European Line on Mladić

Albania had already condemned Mladić when he died, and its prime minister spoke before he was buried. Tuesday’s statement did something different: it placed Tirana formally inside the European response to what Serbia did at the funeral. The Newsroom (Tirana)   Albania’s minister for Europe and foreign affairs, Ferit Hoxha, on Tuesday evening joined the …