Albania: country of eagles

Albania is only slightly bigger than the island of Sicily and its name, in the local language, means “country of eagles”, perhaps because it’s 70% covered with barren and mountainous landscapes. A former Italian colony (as a result of which Tirana displays examples of Rationalist architecture), Albania came under the influence of the Soviet Union after the Second World War, although it maintained a degree of autonomy. The regime, dominated for almost 40 years by the dictator Enver Hoxha, president of the republic from 1946 until his death in 1985, was cut off and impenetrable for the outside world. This isolation was encouraged to a large degree by the country’s position sandwiched between the autonomous communist regime in Yugoslavia to the north and the democracy of Greece to the south. As a result, the country that emerged following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the arrival of democracy in Tirana was particularly poor. The severe economic and political crisis that followed triggered a wave of emigration towards western Europe – in particular to the nearby Italian region of Apulia (separated from Albania by the 75-kilometre-wide Strait of Otranto) and to Greece. The Balkans’ new geography finds Albania now bordering Serbia, Montenegro, the republic of Macedonia and Greece. Its 362-kilometre coastline gives onto the Adriatic and Ionian seas. There are about 3.1 million inhabitants in its 29,000 square kilometres of land, 700,000 of whom in the capital, Tirana. Other important cities include Durazzo, Elbasan, Korca, Scutari and Valona. Albania is a parliamentary republic and the current prime minister, Sali Berisha, has been in office since 2005. The president, since 2007, is Bamir Topi.

About 99% of the population is ethnic Albanian and speaks Albanian as a language, although there are about 2.2 million Albanians living in nearby Kosovo, the Serbian region that unilaterally proclaimed independence in February 2008, another 750,000 in Macedonia and 600,000-700,000 in Greece.

From an economic point of view, Albania is showing good growth but its gross domestic product remains particularly low at around 20.5 billion dollars in 2007. There is little prospect of the country joining the European Union in the near future.

According to industry estimates, Albania has the ability to generate credits amounting to about 2.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent a year, about the same as Montenegro.

The CDM projects that have been identified range from waste management (three landfill sites with recovery and burning of biogas) to renewable energy (several mini-hydroelectric projects plus a wind farm on the coast), from energy efficiency (investments needed at a refinery, steelworks, etc.) to forestry (replanting of the Kukes area).

ContaCTS

IN ITALy

Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea
Department for environmental research and development
Director General: Corrado Clini
Tel. 06.57228102/03/04
Fax: 06.57228173/75
E-mail:pia-sdg@minambiente.it

In Albania: CHIARA CATTANEO

Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea Republic of Italy
Task Force for Central and Eastern Europe
Rr. "Deshmoret e 4 Shkurtit"
Kompleksi "Green Park" Kulla 2, Kati 3, Apt.4, Tirana - Albania
Tel/Fax: +355 4 271941
e-mail: Cattaneo.Chiara@minambiente.it