Tangled web woven over Albania crisis

Date: 17/04/1997

By Mark Turner

FACED with its most profound foreign policy crisis since the civil war in former Yugoslavia, Europe held a meeting and designed a bureaucracy.

While the cameras were trained on the arrival of 6,000 Italian-led troops on Albanian soil, the continent's diplomatic élite created an ominously familiar 'three-pillar' administration to supervise them.

The EU will take charge of economic assistance and humanitarian aid to the country, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will oversee political issues such as the country's summer elections, and Italy will lead the multinational armed force to ensure aid goes to the right places.

Adding to the Who's Who of international organisations with a role in the crisis, Europe's defence arm - the Western European Union (WEU) - and the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe are also slated to give technical assistance to Albania's police, a role they fulfilled in the Bosnian city of Mostar.

Journalists and politicians faced with tracking the activities of five organisations, all with different presidencies and secretariats, can at least console themselves that the transatlantic military umbrella, NATO, remains hidden in the shadows.

The arrangement has been quick to draw knowing smiles from EU diplomats well acquainted with the inherent pitfalls of splitting economics, justice, defence and foreign policy. “At a time when we are searching for ways to integrate EU policy into a more coherent whole, in Albania our governments have pushed its constituent elements even further apart,” quipped one Brussels official.

But those governments simply appear relieved that some sort of ordered response has at least been agreed, reducing the pressure on them to find a miracle solution to Albania's woes.

A spokeswoman for the Danish presidency of the OSCE insisted that the new structure was a viable modus operandi to deal with a completely new phenomenon.

“This is the first time that we have found ourselves fixing a broken democracy,” she said. “There is no civil war, no ethnic conflict, no natural north-south divide. In fact, although people are armed they are not even fighting each other. This is an entirely new experience.”

She also insisted that the OSCE was the right body to lead the operation, saying: “We have a consensus amongst all our member states that we should provide the coordinating framework.” But she confessed that everyone was curious to see how the arrangements would work out in practice.

The 'pillars' will be loosely fronted by OSCE special envoy and elder statesman Franz Vranitzky, but will be coordinated on the ground from Tirana by a deputy, Herbert Grubmayr, a former Austrian ambassador to Moscow and head of the OSCE's mission to Estonia.

There had been some controversy as to whether the job should go to an Italian or not, but the final decision met with unanimous approval, according to the organisation's spokeswoman.

“There is always some disagreement in this kind of thing, but we have settled our differences,” she said.

Grubmayr will not, however, be able to issue any orders, as EU member states refused to accept commands from an OSCE figure. He will instead act as a liaison point, warning the various actors of any duplication of effort or inconsistencies of approach.

Exactly how that will be done - whether through daily meetings or briefings - and how many staff he will have to help him has not yet been decided, but diplomats stress that the arrangement will be relatively informal and flexible.

Some EU member states had argued that setting up a bureaucracy before people even knew what it had to do was putting the cart before the horse, but they settled for an assurance that nothing would be set in stone.

“This is not some heavy bureaucracy we are setting up here. This is all about finding a new start for Albania,” said the OSCE.

The decision leaves the Dutch presidency's special envoy Jan de Marchant et d'Ansembourg with a somewhat diluted role, but he will continue to roam the country on behalf of the Netherlands and report any findings to Vranitzky.

In practice, diplomats are relatively optimistic that all those involved know what they are doing.

The OSCE, for example, will now focus on human rights issues and preparing for national elections. Both government and opposition agreed on 9 March that polls should be held in June, although the date is far from settled.

The organisation will also offer technical assistance to legislators and judiciary, and look into appointing an Albanian ombudsman. “If you want to know what we will do, look at any standard OSCE mission,” said the spokeswoman.

Meanwhile, the EU will continue to pump funds into Albania under its eastern European support programmes, and send humanitarian assistance such as medicine and emergency food supplies. Any additional macroeconomic aid remains conditional on further reform.

If there has been any doubt as to precise objectives, it is over those of the Italian-led defence force. But a consensus has now emerged that it will stay firmly out of the political game.

Pjeter Arbnori, speaker of the Albanian parliament, stressed last weekend that the force would not act as a “referee” between the government and rebels, explaining it was “not coming to conquer Albania but to distribute multinational aid”.

Things are, therefore, looking passably good on paper, but diplomats warn against early celebrations. “It is only now that the real work begins,” said one.