Albania |
Greece |
Albanian–Greek relations are foreign relations between Greece and Albania. Albania maintains an embassy in Athens and consulates in Ioannina and Thessaloniki. Greece maintains an embassy in Tirana and consulates in Gjirokastër and Korçë.
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Due to the circumstances of the Albanian declaration of independence in 1912 Greece was not willing to accept it, as half of the declared Albanian population were under Greek rule, conquered in the First Balkan War. This was solved under the force of the Great Powers (Austria–Hungary and Italy) with the Florence Protocol that forced Greece to choose between Northern Epirus and the Aegean Islands. Greece choose the second but this was the beginning of the Greek minority problems in the region. The issue was de jure solved with the Protocol of Corfu. The dispute remains de facto unsettled until today. Relations were tense until 1939 and the occupation of Albania by Italy.
Greek and Albanian forces came into conflict during the Greco-Italian War. During the Axis Occupation of Greece the Greek and Albanian resistance groups were in close contact and even exchanged information about the Nazi occupation forces.
After the fall of communism in Albania in 1992, a large number of economic refugees and immigrants from Albania (and other formerly Communist countries including Bulgaria, Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia) arrived in Greece, mostly as illegal immigrants, to seek employment. Albanians in Greece comprise 60-65% of the total number of immigrants in Greece. According to the 2001 census, there are officially 443,550 holders of Albanian citizenship in Greece.[1][2]
Today, relations have significantly improved; Greece and Albania signed a Friendship, Cooperation, Good Neighborliness and Security Agreement on 21 March 1996. Additionally, Greece is Albania's main foreign investor, having invested more than 400 million dollars in Albania, Albania's second largest trading partner, with Greek products accounting for some 21% of Albanian imports, and 12% of Albanian exports coming to Greece, and Albania's fourth largest donor country, having provided aid amounting to 73.8 million euros.[3]
As for the Greek minority that resides in part of the Albania's south (Northern Epirus), there have been reported various occasions of discrimination[4][5] as the Albanian government has purged ethnic Greeks from appointed positions of power[6] and continues to restrict[7] the teaching of the Greek language. Additional issues are the alleged involvement of the Greek government in local politics, the raising of the Greek flag on Albanian territory, and the language taught in state schools of the region; however, these issues have, for the most part, been non-violent.
The census of October 2011 in Albania will include ethnicity for the first time in that country after 1989, a long standing demand of the Greek minority and of international organizations. However, minority representatives decided to abstain from the census since due to recent developments and modifications in the proccedure the right of free-self determination is not being guaranteed. Greek government underlined that its Albanian counterpart should take urgent measures since the respect of minority rights is a fundamental criterion in the EU accession process of Albania.[8]
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