For two days, the beaches of Qeparo and Karaburuni have been facing clouds of concrete dust and the deafening noise of excavators. With a massive presence of IKMT police chiefs, the state action has leveled a 5-story building in Himara and another structure in Vlora. Such scenes would be common for the autumn or winter period, but the intervention is being carried out at the height of the tourist season, where vacationers who have paid for peace have to pass between ruins and heavy vehicles.
This current picture directly clashes with the very standard that the majority has set for the smooth running of the season. Just a few days ago, the political leader of the Socialist Party, Taulant Balla, raised the protection of the tourist season to the level of a national principle when he attacked the opposition mayor of Kavaja for the works on the city's boulevard. According to him, any intervention that creates noise, dust and obstacles in the summer months constitutes unacceptable damage to the business economy and the image of Albanian tourism.
However, if Balla's stance set the tone for how the coast should be protected from the turbulence of the works in July and August, the current action of IKMT shows that this standard is applied with two scales. The question that arises is, do the institutions that deal with the progress of tourism not have the same daily monitoring and critical attitude towards the action of IKMT? Why is the "peace of tourists" forgotten as soon as the state's own funds come into play?
The conclusion remains ironic, the peace of tourists and the protection of businesses are not a matter of the calendar, but a matter of who has the wheel of the excavator. When an opposition municipality fixes a road in the middle of summer, this is described as "destruction of tourism due to irresponsibility". While when heavy state vehicles collapse concrete by the sea between beach umbrellas, the same damage to tourism is called "enforcement of the law" and turns into a normal procedure that could not wait for September.
