Vangjeli: Europe has changed, and so has its stance toward Albania

Analyst Lorenc Vangjeli has declared on Alba Alishani’s “Trialog” program on RTSH24 that Europe has changed fundamentally and that this change has also influenced its stance toward Albania.

According to Vangjeli, the Europe of before the start of the war in Ukraine was “cynical, selfish, xenophobic and arrogant”.

“Yesterday’s Europe, that is, the Europe which had begun to be, let’s say, let’s also set a timeframe before the start of the war in Ukraine, cynical, selfish, xenophobic and arrogant. So this Europe of yesterday would have looked at this dichotomy between corruption and the fight against it with a different eye and would have said, yes, Albania has endemic corruption. And this is a big problem which must be addressed. Today’s Europe… No, no, no, no, listen, today’s Europe, for various reasons, but because its nature has changed, says that fine, corruption, but success is the fight you wage against it. It seems as if they are two sides of the same coin, two truths which exist separately, but also contradict each other,” Vangjeli declared.

Vangjeli underlined that Europe’s change is linked to the war on its eastern borders and to the geopolitical reality.

“It is not the same Europe, so, this is the problem. Today Europe, starting, I said once again, with the very big problem of the war on its eastern borders, with much bigger problems, but also with the philosophy that there is no vacuum… in geopolitics there is no vacuum.

And in a troubled region like the Balkans, if the actors of the West were absent, the main actors of the West, that is the EU and the United States, unfriendly powers, whether toward the EU or toward the United States, would have ground to enter, to intervene.

So, it is a changed Europe, which gives us this changed approach, which the prime minister may take for day-to-day politics as a decoration, but this changes nothing in our reality. And it can be said that once again, Ms. von der Leyen’s alternative truth is true,” Vangjeli said.

He added that, while Europe has changed its tone, the U.S. Department of State remains more traditional and closer to reality, continuing to place the emphasis on corruption, emigration, money laundering and organized crime.