FACED with the prospect of major unrest in the Balkans, EU states struggled yesterday to find a common stance on the crisis. Several days into the crisis the current Dutch presidency has failed even to issue a statement.
The inaction carried uneasy reminders of the failure to stop the wars in former Yugoslavia and prevent NATO allies Greece and Turkey from almost coming to blows over a disputed islet in the Aegean last year. On both occasions, a more muscular US diplomacy stepped into the breach.
So far, the only official EU reaction has been a statement by the European External Affairs Commissioner, Mr Hans van den Broek, urging restraint on all sides, a wish that appeared to have been overtaken by events even before it was expressed.
Tomorrow senior officials from EU member-states are due to meet in Brussels to discuss what measures the Union, which has pumped some 400 million Ecus into Albania in recent years, could take. A Commission spokesman said yesterday it was for EU member-states, not the Union's executive arm, to decide what to do.
The Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Spring, has also called for restraint from all sides. He said the Albanian government and opposition had a duty to come together to seek a political solution.
As a member of the EU Troika, Ireland was in close contact with the Dutch Presidency on the issue, he said. The crisis "affects not only the people of Albania themselves, but could have serious implications for stability in the Balkan region," he added.
The EU's South East Working Group is to have an emergency meeting in Brussels today to discuss the developing situation.
As Albanian troops enforced emergency rule, the Foreign Minister, Mr Tritan Shehu, yesterday defended the measure, saying it had succeeded in pulling the state back from the brink of civil war.
"With this ruling the risk of civil war has diminished hugely. If we had not taken it ... today Tirana would have been attacked by the rebels," he told the Italian daily L'Unita. He said the south was "completely out of control".
The EU's silence was once again in sharp contrast to the expressions of alarm coming out of Washington. "We're very concerned that the state of emergency is being used to stifle legitimate free expression," the US State Department spokesman, Mr Nicholas Burns, said.
Mr Burns sharply criticised the election of Mr Berisha to a second five-year term.
Diplomats and analysts fear unrest in Albania could reignite the Balkans by drawing in ethnic Albanians living in the Kosovo region of Serbia and the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia. Macedonia has put its troops on alert along the border with Albania.
In London yesterday the NATO Secretary General, Mr Javier Solana, stressed the alliance was not a world policeman and ruled out military intervention, saying diplomacy was the key to solving the crisis.
Mr Solana, who held talks with the British Defence Secretary, Mr Michael Portillo, said the prime aim of the 16-member alliance was to guarantee the security of its own members. Albania is not a full member.
Mr Portillo stressed: "What we have in Albania is a political problem."
The UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, suggested a cash injection could relieve Albania of its problems.
"I hope that the government can restrain itself and not use undue force against the people who legitimately feel aggrieved," he said after talks in The Hague with the Dutch Prime Minister, Mr Wim Kok.
Germany's Foreign Minister, Mr Klaus Kinkel, asked the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to send a top-ranking troika to Tirana.
In Moscow, the Russian foreign ministry spokesman, Mr Gennady Tarasov, urged "all forces in Albania to abandon their intransigence on minor political points and begin a dialogue."