The President declared that he did not decree the bill, which had been approved in parliament by a narrow majority just three weeks ago “because it was in contradiction with land ownership rights as well as with article 41 of the Constitution,” office of the President declared. (Private property is guaranteed. It is attained through donation, heritage or purchase, according to article 41 of the Constitution of the Republic of Albania).

Prime Minister Berisha declared that he would introduce this bill once more for approval by the parliament and that his government had the necessary majority for this purpose. However, the problem is that a part of the majority MPs do not share his same views, thus when this bill was voted in parliament Berisha got only 58 out of 74 majority votes.

Most analysts think that Berisha will not be able to get all the necessary votes for the bill that he has approved.

Legalizations
During the last 15 years, about 300,000 Albanian have migrated from the high lands of the country toward the agricultural lands around the major cities. They have occupied lands and have built illegal homes thus creating sub-urban areas lacking almost any type of infrastructure.

The self-declared right wing government of Sali Berisha, thinks that it should legalize all illegal buildings by means of a specific law, and at the same time offer the squatters to buy the occupied land for a symbolic price.

A small number of politicians who say are advocating for property rights, offer an alternative solution. They suggest that the issue of all these squatters can be solved through the construction of apartment buildings. These apartment buildings could then be provided as free of charge housing by the government.

Reactions
The daily media reacted at the same time offering a wide variety of solutions to the issue…

“Mr. Berisha wants to legalize the illegal and declare illegal the legal property in the name of the poor,” was a comment by analyst Mimoza Picari of daily newspaper Shqip.

“The government never considered the fact that the original owners are as poor as those who have occupied their lands. Mr. Berisha is not letting go of his house for these poor squatters coming from the mountains, in the name of his social policy and then wait to be compensated by the government at a second period. In fact he likes to implement his social policies by using for that purpose the property of others,” Picari commented in daily Shqip.

“The government is incapable of understanding that the issue has to do with the low level of urbanization of the country. It is confusing a social problem with a legal one,” Gjergj Erebara of weekly ABC says. Expansion of the Albanian cities by making use of the high development of the construction industry of the country, would in turn give the government the opportunity to treat these squatters as poor in need of housing,” according to Erebara.

“By legalizing illegal constructions then the urbanization of the country would be postponed for at least another three decades.  The government wants to give squatters something which they already have. Meanwhile, the title for free land would not provide these illegal constructions with water, sewage systems, schools and medical centres…By this law the government has instead started the foundations for the creation of urban ghettos,” Erebara wrote for weekly ABC.

Posted by on Mar 22 2006. Filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry