Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

In a speech to a meeting in Kamez, reported on 9 November, Albania’s Prime Minister Sali Berisha talked about the “ideal of national unification” being “the most precious ideal of the Albanians”.  There are some 6m Albanians in the Balkans, but only 3m live in the territory of Albania.  A further 2.2m Albanians live in the former Yugoslavia, of which 2m are in Kosovo.

Berisha said: “I would like to recall that 100 years ago those who strove for ethnic Albania, for Albania with territories in which the Albanians were an ethnic majority and which represented a geographical continuity, those who laid down their lives for the ideal of this Albania, had no state of their own, no institutions of their own...It is decisive that the energies of the nation should go into building its future in freedom.  Therefore, on this 100th anniversary, the greatest tribute we can pay to hundreds and thousands of people who laid down their lives from the outset of the last century to 1999 and 2001, in Kosova [Kosovo] and Macedonia, is to do everything to unite with one another, to do everything to unite with Europe.”

The reference to “Europe”, by which Berisha meant the European Union, was presumably intended to take the irredentist sting out of his comments without diminishing his appeal to nationalist sentiments ahead of next year’s general election.

But the ideal of a Greater Albania does not appeal to all Albanians.  The country is split between Ghegs, in the north and Kosovo, and Tosks.  Tosks would not necessarily welcome an increase in Gheg influence in Albania.  The following Internet discussion post is not untypical: “All proud Tosks hate Sali Berisha who has kicked many Tosks from key state positions...This filthy Gheg changed the entire state machine in favour of the Ghegs, even the Kosovar Ghegs.”