My ordeal to "regain Albanian citizenship"

2025-02-08 19:20:00, Opinione Adrian Stefi

The speech of the DP MP Mr. Oerd Bylykbashi in the parliamentary debate a few days ago on the participation in elections of Albanian compatriots living in Germany or Austria made me sit down today and bring a picture of my experience in facing a concrete legal wall, at the same time meaningless, invented and approved with a pronounced political and social myopia in the Albanian parliament.

The reason that made me sit down and write about this problem was the electoral law for the May 11 elections, which for the first time provides for the voting of Albanians outside the homeland. But here a "trap" appeared because Albanians who live in countries like Germany and Austria and who only have a biometric document of the country where they live make it impossible for the CEC to approve their requests to participate in the elections.

Beyond political and legal analysis, I would like to go directly to the topic because the approval of the law on the right to vote for Albanians outside the borders of Albania brought to my attention the experience I had when I made a legal request for 'Regaining Albanian citizenship' which would consequently make me a participant as a voter in the elections of May 11 of this year with full rights, just like many other compatriots who live in various EU countries or across the Atlantic Ocean and who possess dual citizenship.

But this is not the main thing for me; the main thing for me was the bureaucratic path, perhaps done on purpose, based on policies of depopulation and the lack of access of Albanians to their country, towards other citizens, who not only have no connection with Albania, but perhaps have never even heard the name before , and who take it easily, not having not only consulates, but also embassies in their countries of origin.

Not to mention the completion of documents, translations, signatures and apostille stamps, when we Albanians ourselves need to activate relatives, e-Albania portals with or without ID!

Without further ado, I am bringing up the ordeal and the "pilferage of documents" submitted to the Albanian consulate, as MP Oerd Bylykbashi rightly said in the Assembly, clearly expressing his support for an urgent amendment to the law on "Regaining Albanian citizenship" approved by a socialist majority in 2020.

My ordeal to "regain Albanian citizenship"

Precisely in August 2023, since I had accurate and direct information from German politics that the "Dual Citizenship Law" (Mehrstaatlichkeitsgesetz) had passed the Scholz cabinet meeting and would soon be passed for approval in the Bundestag, I decided to prepare the documents to request the "Regaining of Albanian citizenship" based on Albanian law no. 113/2020 on citizenship.

I was informed that the procedures for this purpose were carried out based on the news coming out of Prime Minister Rama's office, on the e-Albania portal. And in fact there was a "facilitation" of the procedure up to that moment with the actions being carried out on the portal and after I submitted all the data that was required of me in accordance with the legal obligation, I received approval from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that "Your request for the re-establishment of Albanian citizenship has been finally approved".

It was a fleeting joy, so to speak, because from this very moment the odyssey of original documents that had to be obtained from e-albania or from the civil status offices of the neighborhood or municipality would begin, while being present in person, thus simultaneously being listed as a "foreign tourist" in the prime minister's statistics.

As my leave passed quickly, I had to go from one office to another, watching as registers and books were opened and flipped through to find my name and family tree, as if I were in the world of the "dream palace" where dreams coming from the darkest recesses of the Ottoman Empire were analyzed.

What exactly was required of me now?

I was asked for all the documents that I had deposited in e-Albania and had been sent online to the diaspora sector at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but now in original!

Born, raised, educated, and working in Tirana, I had to submit a "Family Tree Certificate," as if I had been born on the plains of Manchuria, a nobody.

I was also asked for my parents' "Death Certificate", as if my father had been a different person with a different name and surname while I was alive. (Thank goodness I wasn't asked for my parents' DNA and mine for comparison). I was also asked for a "Personal Certificate" with information about where I had lived, who my mother and father were, a "Birth Certificate" of course again with the names of my parents, a "Presidential Decree of President Moisiu on the renunciation of Albanian citizenship", as well as a "Criminal Certificate" issued by the Albanian and German authorities, but also a request addressed to the President of the Republic, gastroenterologist doctor B.Begaj, as to why I was requesting Albanian citizenship, as if I were complaining to him about some acute gastroenteritis!!!

And with all this pile of papers, including the criminal record certificate issued by the 'Federal Legal Office' of the Republic of Albania, which resulted in a completely blank record (keine Eintragung) (unlike many mayors, former ministers or socialist MPs, who you can't catch from what they did in emigration), I made an appointment on September 13, 2023 at the Albanian consulate in Munich and specifically with the Consul General, Mr. Dashnor Ibra.

With this bundle of letters, even translated by well-known legal Albanian translators in Germany, I appeared that September day at the Albanian consulate, which was above a Döner-Qebapi bar, in a common entrance with the consulate of the Republic of Kosovo and precisely on the street "Albert-Schweizer-Str. 62", together with my son who had just completed his studies at the Faculty of Medicine also in Munich.

My ordeal to "regain Albanian citizenship"

But what do I see? A large number of people with small children in strollers and without strollers came to submit documents for renouncing Albanian citizenship and an employee distributing pieces of paper with the consulate's bank account number for additional payments for any lack of this or that document. While I had come to submit documents in the opposite direction!

I was also given a fine because I had left out the German passport, i.e. the place of birth (Tirana), height (173cm) and eye color (brown). So only the word braun (brown) had to be translated. (Good thing they didn't ask me to translate the photo too!!!) The fine for this would of course be €20.

Well, everywhere stamps and signatures are required and I made these payments to be fair to the consular authorities. After all, they go to my country's treasury, I thought to myself. And in the end, after receiving the document confirming the proper delivery of the documentation, I asked a very simple question:

Here I have my old Albanian passport with number: 0028424 and this alone is irrefutable evidence for regaining citizenship, in addition to the native language and place of residence; then why are we being asked for all this flood of documents? But it was not the consul's fault, such was the strict law.

I would receive the answer, according to the consul, Mr. D. Ibra, approximately in 5 months, after the file was passed back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it would go to the Ministry of Interior and then to the President for signature.

But to my surprise, on January 22, I received an e-mail from Mr. Miranda Kokona with the following content:

"The criminal record certificate issued by the German authorities does not have an apostille stamp"!!!

So, the Ministry of the Interior, led by ministers with not-so-pleasant backgrounds, questioned the document issued by the "Federal Office of Justice" (Bundsamt für Justiz), requesting an apostille counterstamp issued by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs that would prove the authenticity of the original document issued by this office!!!

Navigating the websites on the criteria for issuing apostille stamps, I came to a conclusion that was both ridiculous and offensive to the German authorities, that Germany had been classified by the Albanian authorities in the apostille of documents on a scale with countries like Colombia, Argentina, or who knows where, as if Albania had an old bureaucratic history like that of the Prussian Emperor Frederick I, or Chancellor Bismarck, and not the Germany that was created by them.

So, with these whirlwinds of ridiculous situations in my head, I made a last-ditch effort: I sent the aforementioned document to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs to obtain an apostille stamp full of "value and credibility" for the authorities of the Ministry of Interior of Lazarat Albania, knowing full well that the legal deadlines would pass and that the so-called "pedantic" Albanian law required the submission of documents within two weeks.

Of course, the apostille took six weeks and I was informed of this from the beginning by the German authority, but I still hoped that this should be a formality without consequences and, stating that I am Albanian by nationality and citizenship; born, raised in Tirana, with family, relatives and friends like any Albanian of my age, the document would be added to my file to go to President B. Begaj for signature.

And so I mailed the apostilled document to the address of the Albanian consulate, but not even 24 hours had passed and the consulate, without opening the envelope, returned it to me in the most rude way possible, without any relevant comment as to why it was being returned.

So here ended my odyssey to "Regain Albanian citizenship", taking with me a bitter experience from the outgoing bodies of the socialist government, which I had long ago trusted and supported at every step, both in opposition and in government.

Perhaps my "bad luck" was apparently that I was not a wrestler from Azerbaijan or a Colombian or an Indian from Kashmir who managed to swear on the Constitution of my country approved in 1998, signed by Prof. Rexhep Mejdani, but I was an "ordinary former refugee" like many others; but here we come to Albania, we spend our permits there with our families, we educate our children with love and respect for that country, we honor Albania wherever we go, giving it perhaps not so deserved publicity, but here the lack of that "damn" apostille stamp requested with a magnifying glass and without any justification by some mediocre official of the "Office for Foreigners and Immigration" in the building where Taulant Balla once sat automatically issues us "non-grata".

And what is the point of all that rhetoric by Prime Minister Rama with pathetic appeals, "Come on, Albanians, go back to your country, live and invest here, because Italy and Germany are no worse"?

Experience and the laws in force show the opposite; anything else is demagogy.