Some anti-western vices of Greece with the Albanians, which should be treated with sportsmanship

2024-11-04 10:26:00, Opinione Mero Baze

Some anti-western vices of Greece with the Albanians, which should be treated

Greece has some anti-western vices, like no other western country, which we Albanians are already used to and we are not very impressed. And these vices are mainly demonstrated at the borders of Greece and Albania.

Yesterday it became a big problem why Greece stopped the Albanian journalists who went to follow the visit of Edi Rama. But this is not the first time. At the Greek border, it is probably the only European border where if you tell them you are a journalist, they ask "do you have a camera with you", "what are you going to do in Greece", "where are you going to sleep", "where are you going to go", etc. It's more convenient to say I'm a shepherd than a journalist.

Edi Rama mentioned the case of Marin Mema, as a journalist forbidden to go to Greece", but in fact there is a wide list of journalists and political and official figures, who are bothered at the borders of Greece, or turned back without any explanation, because of their duty.

I have suffered it for almost 20 years and if I did not complain to the Greek ambassador in Tirana in 2014, who was an open-minded diplomat, the same habit would probably continue. More or less it happened like this: The policeman looks at the passport, enters the data into the computer, gets ready to stamp, when suddenly a note appears on the screen. He closes the counter, walks up, makes a phone call, then tells you to get out of the queue, wait a bit. If you ask for clarification, the waiting time is 45 minutes, if you are polite it is 25 to 30 minutes.

The same scene happened to me when I accompanied the prime minister or the speaker of the country's parliament, being an officially accredited journalist in the delegation, and when I accompanied my father in the wheelchair for surgery. They allowed him to cross the border, but not me. It seemed that it was not police work, but system work.

The last time it happened to me in 2014, the ambassador of Greece in Tirana was traveling with me and the Speaker of the Parliament of Albania, Ilir Meta. It happened again even though the passports were taken to be stamped by the Ambassador of Greece in Tirana. After that it didn't happen again and I hope that his powerlessness to help me in front of the Greek police had a positive effect.

Of all the European countries, Greece is the only country that declares persons of Greek nationality "non grata" in Albania, whom it considers "traitors" of the Greek national issue, such as the case of Jorgo Goros in Himara. All European countries declare persons "non grata" for European principles, for involvement in major corruption, or links to organized crime, only Greece declares you "non grata" if you are not a "Greek patriot".

Think for a moment if Albania applied this Greek criterion, how long would be the list of Albanians that we could declare "non grata" for cooperation with Greece.

There is an installed racism in the behavior of the Greek border police with the Albanians. Only at the borders of Greece with Albania there is the expression "the computer broke down" while the queue of cars is 1 km long and you can see customs officers and cynical policemen contentedly going to drink coffee and make fun of the Albanians waiting in line. In no country in wild Africa does the expression "the computer broke down" exist anymore, as the border systems are not simply a matter of a computer, but are certified systems with the highest standards. In Albania, where nothing is unbreakable, for example this system has never been broken.

Citizens originating from Chameria who have the name of their village written in their passports are still not allowed to enter Greece. After many efforts, the Albanian side agreed to write the Greekized name of Filati or Paramithisa in the Albanian passport, but life at the borders is dark for them, even though there are a few old people left who probably no longer even have the strength to go to their former homes. theirs.

Even technically, when you go by car in Greece, there is a procedure that you don't have anywhere in the world. They put a stamp in your passport for the car, which no customs office in the world can explain, and if you happen to go to Greece several times in a row, you no longer have room for police stamps because they have filled the Greek customs stamps for the car you enter.

There are also special rules for Western tourists who want to enter Albania from Greece. For example, they cannot travel to Albania with a car rented in Greece. They can come from Italy or Austria and France, but not from Greece. The procedures of the insurance companies and the state for this practice have become so complicated that no one has been able to solve it for years and many western tourists remain depressed at the borders between Greece and Albania because they cannot understand why they cannot cross to another country.

All these "vices of Greece" are actually a special regime related to Albania. It is inexplicable why they need this special "persecutive" regime.

Albania not only does not pose any danger to Greece, but Albanians are an important factor of the Greek economy inside Greece. Even Greece should have a strategy to survive its economy through the Albanian factor, which is not needed only to gather olives.

On the other hand, the Greek factor in Albania has been de-factored not by official Tirana but by official Athens. Today, the Greek minority areas in Albania are empty, and without hope of revitalization except for old people who want to return to die in their homes. Young people and new generations born in Greece feel Greek and they don't even think about their remaining villages in Albania.

The policy that Greece has followed towards the Greek minority in Albania, giving its monopoly to two or three people, has made this situation even more depressing. And to think that half of the problems Albanian journalists or politicians have at the border are from these people who recommend to the Greek government for "dangerous Albanians" who should be tortured at the borders with Greece or declared "non grata".

But beyond this problem at the borders, as soon as you cross the border into a European country, no one looks like the customs officers or the policemen of the customs points who behave like Enver Hoxha's border police before 1990.

Greece remains the best neighbor of Albania, the most useful for the labor market, for commercial exchanges or for mutual businesses. Greeks and Albanians are probably the people who get along the fastest and best with each other.

And all this "special regime" at the border could not prevent this.

Albanians have already learned that on the border with Greece, they will have trouble and they take this for granted. This never happens to them at the border with Italy, also a western neighboring country, or when they go directly by plane to Austria, Germany, France or somewhere else in the EU.

It happened only in Greece, a country that often looks like a bad Balkan in the EU, and not a good European in the Balkans./ CNA