Greece slams the EU door to Albania in maritime dispute | United Europe
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Greek relations with Albania are another problematic issue between neighbouring countries which are both Nato members.
They are still formally in a state of war after 70 years, based on Greek law of 1945. The Greek army ethnically cleansed the Albanian-Cam population from the region of Cameria, on the northwest coast of today’s Greece, in June 1944.
The law on war with Albania has not been annulled since then. The ‘Cam issue’ has remained a permanent political hot potato in diplomatic talks between Athens and Tirana since then, but no solution has been reached about the Albanian-Cam populations who were deported.
Albania has demanded the return of the expelled Albanian population while Greece sees it as being a legal-property problem for former inhabitants of Cameria.
Greece has told Albania that EU accession negotiations will not begin – despite it having EU candidate status – without the Ionian Sea Border Agreement of 2009, in the north of Cameria, being enforced. Albania’s 225 square kilometres (140 square miles) of territorial waters south of the main Albanian tourist centre Saranda and north of the Greek island of Corfu are at the centre of an Albanian – Greek territorial dispute.
Greece has mapped Albania’s territorial waters among a total of 20 Greek energy zones.
Four billion barrels of oil and 1.5 billion square metres of gas have been discovered in this part of Albania’s territorial waters. Twenty international companies have shown interest in the oil and gas reserves in the Ionian Sea which could create 20 billion euros of income over the next two decades.
A maritime border agreement between Albania and Greece was signed in April 2009 but Albania’s constitutional court rejected it in January 2010 as comprising a ‘violation of the territorial integrity of Albania’.
Albania’s state prosecutor opened a criminal investigation in June 2014 into the signing process of this bilateral treaty. Albania’s Parliamentary Commission for Foreign Affairs found that the maritime treaty violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Albania. Greece reacted by stating that Albania would not be able to start accession negotiations without the maritime agreement being ratified. This is seen as Greece blackmailing Albania for its territorial waters.
Albania was granted candidate status at the European Council in June 2014 but Greek foreign minister Evangelos Venizelos said that ‘candidate status and the start of accession negotiations are not the same thing. The negotiation process could only start after the enforcement of the Ionian Sea Border Agreement’.
