ALBANIA: READOUT OF NOVEMBER 7 INTERAGENCY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TIRANA 000989

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

BELGRADE ALSO FOR PODGORICA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/09/2017
TAGS: PREL MARR PGOV NATO AL
SUBJECT: ALBANIA: READOUT OF NOVEMBER 7 INTERAGENCY
EVALUATION VISIT

REF: A) TIRANA 967 B) TIRANA 974 C) TIRANA 463 D)
TIRANA 885

Classified By: Ambassador John L. Withers II, Reasons 1.4 (B) and (D).

Summary
--------------


1. (C) The Interagency Team led by USNATO Ambassador Nuland
on November 7 provided clear benchmarks toward NATO
integration to Albania's President Topi, Prime Minister
Berisha and key Ministers, and a group of Parliamentarians.
She explained that the USG and other NATO Allies will start
making national decisions after the Membership Action Plan
(MAP) cycle ends in February 2008 whether or not to invite
Albania, Croatia, and Macedonia to join NATO, with an
Alliance decision at the Bucharest Summit in April. She
stressed three areas in which the GOA needs to show concrete
progress in the next three months in order to be in the best
position for an invitation:

-- judicial reform - implement existing legislation and draft
new laws to strengthen judiciary independence and the rule of
law; a key indicator will be the GOA's appointment of an
effective, independent, highly-qualified jurist to replace
recently-ousted Prosecutor General Theodor Sollaku;
-- electoral reform - make progress toward establishing a
functioning civil registry and developing an ID card system;
and
-- trafficking - continue fighting all kinds of trafficking
and ensure that returning victims of human trafficking
receive necessary help.

Nuland stressed that Albania must sustain progress in
military reforms, economic growth, and good neighborly
relations and advised her interlocutors that Albania's help
is needed to keep peace in the region, particularly with
respect to Kosovo and ethnic tensions in Macedonia. Senior
Albanians must continue their full court press in more
skeptical European capitals as well.


2. (C) President Topi, Prime Minister Berisha, and Foreign
Minister Basha highlighted Albania's progress in implementing
MAP reforms and cited statistics showing results in law
enforcement, corruption and economic indicators.
Acknowledging that corruption was still a serious problem,
the GOA representatives were optimistic that a new Prosecutor
General would help the GOA fulfill its campaign promise to
reduce corruption significantly. End Summary.

The Last Coaching Session
--------------


3. (U) USNATO Ambassador Victoria Nuland led an Interagency
team including D/AS for Defense Daniel Fata, NSC NATO
Director Toby Bradley, EUR/SCE Director Christopher Hoh, JCS
J5 Col. Mark Shields, USNATO Enlargement Officer Thomas
Underwood, and Enlargement Officer Matthew Thompson to meet
with GOA officials on November 7 to assess Albania's progress
on MAP reforms.


4. (C) Ambassador Nuland drove home a similar message
throughout the day: Albania must continue to work hard on
judicial and electoral reforms and on reducing trafficking.
She underscored that Albania must make concrete, demonstrable
progress in these areas by February. Nuland stressed that
some Allies are not as supportive of Albania's invitation as
the GOA may think and that GOA officials must step up
marketing efforts to make sure skeptical Allies understand
how much progress Albania has made. Ambassador Nuland also
advised the PM that if Albania is invited to join NATO, it
will have to show that it can protect NATO's classified
material and must devote resources to this effort.

Basha Leads Off
--------------


5. (C) FM Basha told the team that electoral and judicial
reforms are the two main pillars of Albania's MAP, and was
confident the process would move forward. (See also Ref B.)
He considered Albania's biggest problem to be its lack of
professional capacity at all levels, something which will
take time to remedy. On electoral reform, Basha cited
progress on the technical front: a new civil registry system
recently launched with the help of Austria and the OSCE, and
the imminent tender for biometric ID cards and passports.
The new documents should be ready by next summer. However,

TIRANA 00000989 002.2 OF 003


he said that legislative issues, such as districting and
proportional representation, are much more complicated, given
Albania's culture and history, and would not be completed
before next summer.

The PM Lists the GOA's Achievements
--------------


6. (C) PM Berisha assembled key ministers (Basha - MFA, Mediu
- Defense, Rusmajli - Justice, Bregu - Integration, Bode -
Finance, Ruli - Economy, and Nishani - Interior),but was the
group's sole speaker. After a long recitation of Albania's
recent reform successes, he received Nuland's list of
incomplete homework in a constructive spirit, and pledged to
do the hard work necessary to have a good story to tell NATO
at his mid-January MAP presentation. He admitted that
organized crime was still a big problem, but cited Italian
statistics showing trafficking to Italy was declining. He
attributed this to better border controls, implementation of
the new Albanian State Police Law, and an organized crime
task force consisting of prosecutors, criminal police, and
tax inspectors (the Joint Investigativ Unit, Ref C).


7. (C) Berisha's list of successes included the fight against
corruption, which he expected to accelerate next year with a
new Prosecutor General. He was adamant about passing
legislation to remove immunity, saying that no one should be
above the law. He was also proud of his government's
economic achievements, citing an improved business climate
from the recently implemented business registration centers
("one stop shop"),a ten percent flat tax, reduced social
contributions, and the GOA's "one euro" initiative. He
claimed that these programs, plus the fact that Albania has
the lowest production costs of any European country, have
greatly increased the flow of investment into Albania. He
pointed also to the e-government initiatives under the MCA
Threshold Project, which he said have saved the country money
by increasing efficiency while reducing opportunities for
bureaucratic corruption. To maintain that momentum for the
future, he is doubling the education budget, plans to have
internet in every school by the end of 2008, and has been
talking to Cisco and Microsoft to open technical academies in
Albania. Berisha told the team that the government
understands how important property rights are and is working
on a land cadastre which will marry citizens' property
registrations with a new aerial map by the end of July. On
foreign policy, he urged the delegation to take a measured
approach in encouraging Macedonia to move forward with
reforms and to better its relations with Greece. He
criticized the EU's recent SAA report on Macedonia as being
too harsh.

President Topi
--------------


8. (C) Ambassador Nuland told Topi that he has an opportunity
to show he is "the President for all Albanians" by selecting
a Prosecutor General with a clean, professional reputation
able to receive broad support. She stressed the importance
of marketing Albania until it has a positive reputation
around kitchen tables in Allied countries. The President
told the team that the U.S. is the greatest friend Albania
has. He was pleased with Albania's accomplishments on its
MAP but acknowledged that it has more to do. Many of his
comments were focused on regional issues with Kosovo and
Macedonia, about whose relations with Greece and its
treatment of the Albania minority he voiced concerns.

Parliamentarians
--------------


9. (C) The team met with the Co-Chairs of Parliament's Ad-hoc
NATO Committee, the Chair and Deputy Chair of the Security
Committee, and the two deputy Speakers. (Each pair
represents one opposition and one majority MP.) While
acknowledging disagreements among them, the MPs said that
Parliament is committed to ensuring the stability of the
democratic process in Albania and focuses on keeping in step
with European positions. They cited recent legislation
increasing sentences for terrorism-related activities and
gender/ethnic crimes. Ambassador Nuland told them they need
to continue working on deepening and strengthening the
judicial reform process and to promote legislation stressing
fairness and transparency. She said the Allies are looking
at the political maturity of the MPs as well as the strength
and irreversibility of reforms. Following the team's
departure, parliamentarians of both sides referred publicly

TIRANA 00000989 003 OF 003


to the need for cooperative efforts on NATO-related reforms.

Exporting Security
--------------


10. (C) Ambassador Nuland stressed to all interlocutors the
importance of Albania being a good neighbor and counselor to
Kosovo and Macedonia. The PM described Albania as a country
of religious tolerance that had never had problems with
religious differences or ethnicity, making it a good
candidate to calm such tensions in the region. President
Topi, voicing concern about Macedonia, mentioned that he had
recently met with President Crvenkovski and cautioned him
about possible fallout from slow implementation of the Ohrid
Framework Agreement. He also met with the leaders of
Macedonia's two ethnic Albanian parties, urging dialogue to
defuse the tension which has lasted between them for almost
two years. Topi will continue to work with the leaders to
try to calm tensions after the previous day's police
operation in Tetovo. The Parliamentarians as well echoed the
need to remain engaged with ethnic Albanians in the region
and mentioned several Parliamentary meetings and outreach
efforts which included the Kosovars.


11. (C) In a separate meeting, DefMin Mediu told Fata and
Shields that he is working with the opposition to reach
consensus on sending an additional company to Iraq, as
promised to the U.S. (Ref D). Mediu had spoken of the issue
to a mixed group of parliamentarians the previous day and
received initial support.


12. (U) Ambassador Nuland's press conference was widely
covered by the broadcast and print media. She thanked
Albania for its troop contributions, saying that Albania had
changed from a security importer to a global security
exporter. The media focused on her comment that Albania was
not ready at this moment to join NATO. Reactions from across
the politically-polarized media spectrum ranged from
criticism that the GOA was not doing enough to optimism on
how far the GOA had progressed.

Comment
--------------


13. (C) Ambassador Nuland and the interagency team clearly
left their GOA interlocutors fired up and cautiously
optimistic. A year after the shock of their substandard MAP
submission in Brussels, the message they took from the visit
is that Albania is again on the right track, and can attain
the goal of an invitation to NATO with sustained effort in a
few key areas. In sum, Nuland's message struck home:
Albania has hard work to do, and little time in which to do
it, if its NATO goal is to be reached.


14. (U) Ambassador Nuland has cleared this cable.
WITHERS