Continuing protests in Albania mark the collapse of the pyramid schemes that have robbed most of families of their savings and given a savage lesson in the seamier realities of market society. The deaths of two protesters in Vlore this week and the government's proposal to impose a state of emergency in the port town must alert wider European attention to a neglected part of the continent which has great potential to spread instability beyond its immediate vicinity.
The pyramid scandals make a pathetic spectacle, all the more so because many ministers are associated with the fraudulent schemes, even as they blame popular gullibility for them, and left-wing subversion for the wave of protests. There has in consequence been a massive disenchantment with the government. It is dominated by the Democratic Party, which had a runaway and much disputed victory in parliamentary elections last year. President Sali Belisha, from the same party, is seeking re-election in April by this parliamentary majority. The opposition parties are based partly on the former communists; they were discredited after the collapse of the previous regime, but have now partly recovered support because of economic mismanagement. The opposition strategy appears to be based on an attempt to block the presidential election, write a new constitution and proceed to new elections.
The protests and now the widespread arrests, the deaths and heavy activity by the security forces, as well as the sheer impoverishment of so many people after their savings disappeared, are likely to speed up this political process, perhaps dramatically, in coming weeks. Although the government has offered to recompense those who have lost money, and has asked the International Monetary Fund for help, nobody believes it can mobilise the resources to repay any but a few of those who have lost out. The affair threatens to overwhelm the achievements made in the last five years, which had been producing growth and, development in several sectors of the economy.
There is a growing realisation, too, that the unrest in Albania may not be confined to that country, but has significant regional implications. There has been much speculation in Serbia that the beleaguered President Slobodan Milosevic may be tempted to provoke trouble in Kosovo, where the 90 per cent Albanian majority is discriminated against in the name of Serb nationalism. Were he to do so the equally beleaguered Albanian President Belisha would be given a perfect issue over which to divert the rage of impoverished citizens who have lost everything. A similar scenario could be drawn in neighbouring Macedonia, where another Albanian minority could provoke trouble between Albania and Greece.
The Italian government is reported to be investigating how best it could come to the help of Albania with aid to mitigate the effects of the pyramid collapses, partly in an attempt to head off another mass migration across the Adriatic. They should alert. their European Union colleagues to the Albanian crisis with a view to co-ordinating such a response. This would be prudent - just as much or arguably more so than their myopic and exclusive fixation with central and eastern Europe. The current events in Albania and elsewhere in the Balkans highlight the one area of the continent where security is genuinely threatened and where, economic solidarity is most needed.
