Thursday 07:31
The Examiner
On 29 March, the Austrian daily Der Standard published a piece by its Balkans correspondent Adelheid Wölfl on the state of European integration in the Western Balkans. The article is, in many respects, a competent survey of familiar anxieties: Montenegro’s uneven reform record, the durability of Vučić’s influence across the region, the thinness of political …
The Examiner
by Albatros Rexhaj (Tirana) COELA met today. It meets again Friday. A third revision of the Draft Common Position circulates tomorrow. That is not a crisis calendar. It is a working one, and the most important thing it records is a shift that has received almost no attention in the coverage of Albania’s accession …
The Examiner
Renada Bici | Tirana Examiner The exchange was quick and telling. Prime Minister Edi Rama, speaking in Tirana’s Unit 12, called the claim that corruption has risen “a great lie” and rejected it with disgust. Gazment Bardhi, leading the Democratic Party’s parliamentary group, responded that the denial itself is the problem, that it shields …
The Examiner
Editorial Board, The Tirana Examiner The Ohrid Framework Agreement of 2001 was not a favour granted to Albanians in North Macedonia. It was the price of peace — a binding compact between the Macedonian state and a quarter of its population, extracted at the cost of an armed conflict that brought the country to the …
The Examiner
No vote. No block. No nine countries. Just a claim the process itself does not support. Ardit Rada | Tirana Examiner On April 4, Sali Berisha described a decision that was never taken. Nine European Union member states, he told the press, had blocked Albania’s IBAR report in Brussels. Integration was frozen. Penalties loomed. By …
The Examiner
In a system built on ambiguity, Braçe remains a rare political fact: named, accountable, and forever incompatible. Ardit Rada | Tirana Examiner Albanian political commentary has developed a reliable reflex when confronted with internal party dissent: it reaches for the most dramatic available frame. In recent days, that frame has been applied to Erion …
The Examiner
The following column by Preç Zogaj was published in Albanian on 4 April 2026. The Tirana Examiner presents it in translation as a contribution to the ongoing debate on dissent and party discipline within Albanian politics. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not represent the editorial position of this publication. Preç Zogaj …
The Examiner
The following column by Jakin Marena was published in Albanian on 3 April 2026. The Tirana Examiner presents it in translation as a contribution to the ongoing debate on the Democratic Party’s internal crisis. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not represent the editorial position of this publication. Jakin Marena | Tirana …
The Examiner
Albania has built the institutional scaffolding the EU requires. What it has not built is the doctrine. Pre-trial detention is the clearest proof of that gap, and it sits at the centre of the country’s accession credibility. Renada Bici | Tirana Examiner Legal Desk Numbers have a particular authority in legal analysis. They resist …
