A potentially tide-changing development has been taking place in Albania in recent times. Tirana and Ankara are keen on increasing their cooperation in various areas from security to trade and investments, however, in particular in the defense and military sector (Exit News, 2021). For later this year, a state visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is planned as the culmination of three major episodes in the past two years. In January 2020, both countries signed an agreement on military cooperation.
Then, at the beginning of this year, Turkey and Albania upgraded their bilateral relations to a strategic partnership. Ankara plans to increase investments and tourism in Albania and declared joint efforts to fight the Gülen movement in Albania, which is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey (Bir & Aydogan, 2021). The latest episode took place last June, when the Albanian parliament earmarked the necessary funds to purchase the Turkish Bayraktar Tb2 drones which have already been sold to other Turkish partners such as Azerbaijan, Qatar, Ukraine, Poland – even Tunisia had purchased Turkish combat drones, albeit of a different producer (Daily Sabah, 2021). The combat drone can neutralize enemy air defense systems, and can also be used to secure infrastructure or facilities. (ibid.).
The 2020 agreement on military cooperation gives Ankara the authority to restructure the Albanian military forces and obliges Tirana to switch to military units provided by Turkey entirely (Santoro, 2021). As a delicate side note, Turkey had also been involved in the restructuring of the Syrian Free Army and of the Libyan governmental forces.
Albania’s balancing acts between East and West
As the EU enlargement process, in particular concerning North Macedonia’s and Albania’s accession negotiations, has reached an impasse the door again to other outside players has been opened wide. Since the end of the Yugoslavian Civil War, the Western Balkans have been widely treated negligibly by Brussels, although their strategic location as the access point to central Europe cannot be denied.
European powers at the time when the Ottoman empire was falling apart sought to gain a foothold there. After the declaration of an independent Albania in November 1912 at the London conference one month later, the leading powers in Europe drew the borders of the new state under great pressure from the neighboring countries and ignored demographic realities assigning the Albanian-majority provinces of Kosovo to Serbia and Çamëria to Greece. In WWI, Albania was invaded by the armies of Austria-Hungary, France, Italy, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia. Only after the end of the war did Albania finally attain true independence and international recognition (Biberaj, 2021). The installation of an isolationist Communist regime under Enver Hoxha ended most relations with other countries until the early 1990s.
Today, European powers have cautiously tried to resuscitate relations with Albania. France’s engagement in Albania rests on soft power instruments such as the latter’s membership in the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, as well as military cooperation beyond NATO. In 2017, Paris had signed a defense cooperation agreement with Tirana in order to combat radicalism, to stabilize the Balkans and to secure the Mediterranean maritime areas (gouvernement.fr, 2018). During WWI, France had even installed a short-lived republic (“Autonomous Province of Korçë”) in the east of Albania (Hötte, 2017). However, it was dissolved in 1920, and France’s attempt to place a vassal state in the Balkans had failed.
Historically closest to Albania in the 20th century was Italy, which had annexed Albania during the reign of Mussolini and used the country to invade Greece. The geographic proximity has led to cultural exchanges and migrations, the last prominent episode represented by the influx of refugees after the breakdown of the communist rule.
When Albania joined NATO in 2009, the expectation was that Tirana could better affirm its national interests and raise its international profile. To modernize and better integrate its armed forces into existing structures, a process of streamlining led to the transformation of Albania’s army into a smaller, fully professional force. Part of the modernization process was also to reduce ammunition depots and the destruction of large amounts of ammunition (Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, 2018). Altogether, Albania has proven itself a dedicated member, hosting Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore operations at the port of Durrës as part of this year’s Defender-Europe 21 exercises (Semini, 2021).
NATO membership was a large goal on the way to an eventual accession to the EU. The issue of EU accession has thus dominated the public discourse and has always been one of the most important issue in past elections (Crowcroft & Ristani, 2021). Even though Albanian political elites portentously demonstrate their devotion to the European cause, they might not be that keen on pressing forward as this would mean closer scrutiny of all aspects of the economy, government and political institutions and may endanger some politicians’ livelihoods. A better strategy for self-preservation then is to point the finger at Brussels and deflect reform pressures at home (ibid.).
Still, not only EU accession negotiations seem stuck, also the gridlocked talks on the normalization process between Kosovo and Serbia preoccupy Albania, a staunch supporter of Priştina’s independence. There are some political circles in Kosovo (as well as in Albania) which support a unification of the states (Conley & Saric, 2021). Albania and Kosovo have entertained defense cooperation since the early 1990s and has been closest in the areas of military education and training as well as Euro-Atlantic integration. Tirana also supports the removal of constitutional limitations on Priştina’s defense sector and the establishment of a Kosovar army (Duro, 2015). In this context the infamous “non-paper” by the Slovenian EU presidency calling for the unification and the creation of a Greater Albania may be more than a curiosity but maybe an indication of Ljubljana’s closeness to Tirana. Last June, the foreing ministers of Germany, Portugal and Slovenia published an article urging to proceed with the EU accession talks underlining the strategic significance of Albania (and North Macedonia) (Maas, Santos Silva & Logar, 2021).
Turkey’s interest in Albania
For Turkey’s strategy to raise its profile in the Mediterranean Sea, Albania plays an important role. At its narrowest point, the Strait of Otranto between southern Italy and Albania is only around 90 km. Hence, the objective is to control the access and exit of the Adriatic Sea, which at the same time puts pressure on Italy, completes the encirclement of Greece, and allows to increase Turkish influence in the Balkans, in particular the Muslim-majority countries (Santoro, 2021). In 2019, the Turkish holding Yilport had signed a 49-year lease of the port of Taranto and invested heavily in expanding its operations there (Capuzzo, 2020). With the port of Taranto under Turkish control, one precondition of dominating the nearby Strait of Otranto has been fulfilled.
A crucial objective of Turkey’s long-term strategy is to cement the ties between their own armies and those of their (junior) allies in order to penetrate the their military apparatuses structurally affirming their influence there. Exactly the same scheme had been tried in Egypt in 2013, however, it failed and Mohammad Morsi’s government fell (Santoro, 2021). As mentioned above, Turkey has been very committed to restructuring armed forces in Syria and Libya as well.
Furthermore, Ankara supports Tirana in their dispute with Athens about the latter’s Ionian islands opposite Albania’s southern coastline. Albania and Greece argue over the extension of the territorial waters of the islands of Corfu, Lazaretto, Ereikoussa and Othonoi. This year, the case has been forwarded to The Hague for jurisdiction (Cuka, 2021). Turkey’s own position is that they do not recognize territorial claims of islands or that islands can lay claim on a continental platform in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. A position which is at loggerheads with Greece and the EU.
Conclusions
The question is how will the intimate collaboration between Ankara and Tirana influence Albania’s foreign policy and its relations to the West. Besides participating in a couple of regional cooperatives with its neighbors, Albania has been a dedicated NATO member since 2009. It had supported neighboring North Macedonia’s bid to accession and is currently in negotiations with their neighbor as well as Serbia to create a border-free travel and business zone. This area shall eventually include Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and access may even be granted to Kosovo (Xinhua, 2019; Dunai & Pop, 2021). Furthermore, Tirana is pursuing closer cooperation with other EU member states through its NATO engagement. For instance, this June, the Albanian minister for defence, Niko Pelesh, talked about intensifying the exchange of know-how and the security situations in the Baltics and the Western Balkans stressing that in both regions Russia poses the greatest threat to the alliance (Baltic Times, 2021). Albania also will participate in the Crimea Platform, an initiative by Kiev to de-occupy the peninsula which will be launched in August, emphasizing their support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2021). Developments that will certainly not displease Turkey as they line up with their own foreign policies.
The EU has to finally take a stance on how to proceed with the accession candidates in the Western Balkans to avoid a further intrusion of outside actors. Aside from China and the historically most active players, Russia and Turkey, also the United Arab emirates have been trying to raise their profile and influence in the whole region (Dunai & Pop, 2021). A clear EU policy would of course require an agreement between the leading member states, France and Germany. Ground for hope could be that their long-term interests will align. Germany as a state dependent on export markets has an avid interest in expanding its (geo)economic influence in the region whereas France may aim at limiting the Turkish advance there, particularly in Albania and its strategically important position in the Mediterranean Sea. A growing interest from the US in Albania, as demonstrated by the military cooperation (e.g. Europe-Defender 2021), evolving economic ties, an improvement in diplomatic relations, and Tirana’s participation in the Clean network initiative to build a 5G infrastructure with American aid (Papa, 2021), could contribute to finally accelerating the decision finding.
Andreas Roesl
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By Andreas Rösl : The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
