In December 1990, Albanian students demanded an Albania like the rest of Europe. Thirty-six years later, the paradox remains: we have a European geography, but the standard of governance continues to be a big question mark.
Europe, once a symbol of an escape from isolation, has become the central promise of Albanian politics and the proclaimed measure of the success of governance. But democracy is not built just by negotiating membership. It requires institutions that limit power, justice that knows no one is immune, and a state that serves its citizens before asking for their patience.
Albania has opened all 33 chapters of the European negotiations, while meeting the standards of the Fundamentals chapter group remains the decisive test. Edi Rama has linked his fourth mandate to the goal of membership by 2030. The ambition is legitimate; the problem is using the promise of the future to cover up the failures of the present. Progress in Brussels is no certificate for the way Tirana is governed.
Europeanization has a more tangible proof than the negotiation chapters: everyday life. In Tirana's fast-food restaurants, even a soufflé costs up to 10 euros, while wages and purchasing power remain far from European standards. Oil, electricity, water, toll roads, taxes and fees weigh on the family budget, while healthcare and quality education often require additional out-of-pocket expenses. Citizens pay more and more, without necessarily receiving more in return. Albania is approaching Europe in prices, but not at the same pace in wages, services and welfare. For families that cannot afford a dignified life, the European promise remains an achievement on paper.
Behind the rising cost of living lies a deeper problem. In the Ramist economy, an extractive model has been consolidated, where public resources, property, territory and economic opportunities are concentrated in the hands of a privileged few, while the costs are distributed among the majority. Through permits, concessions and administrative decisions, the state determines who benefits from development and who pays its price. Economic growth coexists with poverty, luxury investments with the lack of basic services and the enrichment of a few with the insecurity of many families.
Corruption is not just a questionable tender or a file in SPAK. It is also the citizen's experience when a document, permit, job or public service depends on acquaintances and favors. When a person is forced to negotiate for what is legally theirs, the administration turns from a service into a mechanism of dependence.
Thus, a sense of suffocation has been created: deepening poverty for a significant portion of society, economic insecurity for the middle class, and an increasingly visible gap between the lives of ordinary citizens and the wealth concentrated near the powerful.
Another worrying dimension emerges from the investigations into the links between international cocaine trafficking, money laundering and investments in Albania. The Aruba file, investigated by SPAK in cooperation with foreign authorities, has documented meetings of the persons under investigation in Aruba and other countries, where, according to the prosecution, drug trafficking operations and investments in real estate, towers and tourist resorts were allegedly coordinated. The investigations have also raised suspicions of contacts with high-ranking state officials.
Public reports and claims about Edi Rama's knowledge or possible connections with the meetings in Aruba require clarification and verification. But the responsibility of the government is directly addressed: who controls the origin of capital, the real ownership of investments and the relationship between business, administration and government? Development is not measured only by towers and resorts, but also by the transparency of money and the legality of the decisions that stand behind them.
Here the economic debate meets institutional responsibility. The European Commission, alongside progress in judicial reform, highlights ongoing problems with corruption and the functioning of institutions. SPAK has investigated once untouchable figures, an achievement that must be defended. But criminal justice does not replace political responsibility. The prosecution requires evidence of guilt; the government requires integrity and accountability even before the judicial decision.
A democratic police force is not measured by its ability to disperse protesters, but by its professionalism, discipline and respect for human rights. The European Convention on Human Rights protects life, prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment and guarantees peaceful assembly. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has also identified serious problems with the guarantees against ill-treatment and the conditions of deprivation of liberty in Albania. Human dignity is not suspended by a police order.
The credibility of the State Police is also burdened by accusations of links between its segments and organized crime, including the Metamorfosis case. The Police Supervision Agency, which should guarantee the control of legality, also faces questions about its integrity and effectiveness. The law is not protected by being violated by those who are tasked with enforcing it.
These developments place Albania in the middle of a debate about the nature of power. The experiences of Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Robert Fico in Slovakia, and former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski in North Macedonia, although different, offer perspectives on the concentration of power, the weakening of independent institutions, and the treatment of opposition as a threat to stability.
Several models of personalized power in Latin America also offer parallels: decision-making centered around the leader, the propaganda of development in the face of social inequality, economic privileges, and the presentation of political continuity as a condition for national progress. These are mechanisms that appear in different societies, regardless of geography or ideology.
In Albania, the debate over these mechanisms is related to the relationship between political power and economic interests, institutional independence and the treatment of criticism. The governance project speaks the language of Brussels, but its quality is determined by the way power is exercised and limited within the country.
Montesquieu warned of the abuse of power when it knows no bounds. This is precisely why democracies rely on parliamentary control, independent judiciary, free media, and protection of the right to protest. In Albania, these mechanisms of democratic control have faded in the face of the concentration of power and authoritarian tendencies of governance. Institutions exist formally, but their ability to limit the will of the leader remains a fundamental concern.
Rama has been in power since 2013 and won a fourth term in 2025. Repeated electoral victories do not in themselves prove strong institutions. Democracy requires an opposition that competes honestly, a media that investigates without fear, and citizens who criticize without being treated as enemies.
Therefore, the question is not only when Rama will leave, but what standard of governance he will leave behind. This question takes on particular weight for the generations that will inherit the consequences of today's decisions.
For students, Europe cannot be simply a passport that makes it easier to leave. Freedom of movement does not replace the right to live with dignity in their country: quality education, decent work, meritocracy, economic security and protest without fear of illegal force. When a generation seeks perspective and faces rubber bullets and arrests, the problem is the state's relationship with its future.
Edi Rama is leaving Albania's children a more difficult place to live, to be educated, to work and to build a future. An Albania where privilege often outweighs merit, economic insecurity weighs on families and trust in institutions has been undermined. The cost of this model is being passed on to generations to come.
Rama's political departure is not far off. But the date is less important than the damage being done to the country during his tenure in power. Every year of education lost, every opportunity denied to a young person, every family pushed into insecurity, and every citizen who loses faith in justice represents a cost that cannot be repaid with a change of government.
Powers end. Their consequences remain. And the most serious consequences are not measured only by wasted public money or weakened institutions, but by the opportunities and years taken from people, especially students and children, who cannot get back the lost time.
The Albania of 1990 sought to enter Europe. The Albania of 2026 must show what state it is building within its borders. It is not enough to open negotiation chapters when citizens are fighting for the rights those chapters aim to guarantee.
Europe is not a date on the government's calendar. It is the way citizens are treated, how public money is spent, how the power of the state is limited, and how those who govern are held to account.
We don't lack Europe on the map. We still lack, in the practices of power, Europe as a standard of governance. And we can't postpone this until 2030.
