Tuesday 19:22
The Examiner
When Paris does it, it is read as constitutional. When Tirana does it, it is read as backsliding. By Albatros Rexhaj (Tirana) On April 14, French investigators arrived at the Élysée Palace as part of a judicial probe into public procurement contracts worth millions of euros, awarded repeatedly over two decades without competitive tendering …
The Examiner
TIRANA EXAMINER Editorial Board A claim circulates with some persistence in discussions of Albanian media: that the country’s major television stations have been captured by the governing Socialist Party and function, in practice, as instruments of the Rama administration. The claim appears in diplomatic conversations, in reports by international observers, and in the domestic …
The Examiner
Albatros Rexhaj When Viktor Orbán conceded defeat on April 12, something more than a government changed in Budapest. A political system built over sixteen years to make alternation structurally improbable was overturned by a supermajority of Hungarian voters. The scale of Tisza’s victory, 138 seats against Fidesz’s 55, was not a normal electoral rotation. …
The Examiner
By Ardit Rada | Tirana Examiner Staff Writer A report published by Balkan Insight on April 8 carries a serious charge: that Albanian public institutions are deliberately obstructing journalists’ Freedom of Information requests, and that the decline in FOI filings from journalists last year is evidence of a system designed to wear people down. …
The Examiner
When the opposition truly has the support of the people, it can bring down even a mafia-state like Hungary had become by Carlo Bollino (Tirana) The defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary marks a moment that reaches far beyond the borders of Budapest. For years, the system built by the Hungarian leader was described …
The Examiner
The data behind Albania’s procurement system tells a different story than its reputation, forcing a more precise question for EU decision-makers. By Bekim Besimi (Venice) There is a point in every enlargement process where argument detaches from evidence and begins to run on reputation alone. Albania has reached that point. The country is now …
The Examiner
When courts trade evidence for perception, detention stops being law and starts being belief. Renada Bici | Tirana Examiner Legal Desk On Wednesday, Albania’s Constitutional Court — the country’s highest judicial authority and the final domestic guardian of individual rights — upheld the continued imprisonment of a former head of state pending trial. What it …
The Examiner
By Ylli Manjani (Tirana) The Constitutional Court’s decision to reject Ilir Meta’s appeal is not a procedural footnote. It is a warning signal about how criminal justice actually functions in reformed Albania. The reasoning the Court employed — that there “appear to be facts capable of convincing even an outside observer that the person …
The Examiner
by Arsejda Gjyli (Tirana) Gazment Bardhi delivered his statement on parliamentary obstruction with the precision of a man who knows his real audience is not in the chamber. The report — cataloguing six months of rejected committees, refused interpellations, and disciplinary exclusions — was addressed formally to the Speaker of Parliament and, more meaningfully, to every …
