The Greek Minority in Albania
The Greeks in Albania form the second largest ethnic group in the country.
The ethnic Greek minority constitutes a linguistic, cultural, and religious distinct minority. Most of the population is located compactly within the Gjirokater, and Sarande regions of the country and in four costal settlements within costal Himare area.
Vickers notes that the majority the ethnic Greeks live south of a line running roughly from the Adriatic port of Vlore to the eastern town of Korce, with a particular concentration in the Drin valley.
Estimates of the ethnic Greek minority in Albania range from to 2 percent to 8 percent of the total Albanian population. The numbers vary. The census data appears not to be clear, various sources give different percentages.
The 1961 Census puts the number of ethnic Greeks to 40,000. Twenty years later (1981) the figure had risen to $58,758, a rise in proportion to the general increase of Alania’s population, so the argument goes. The CIA World Fact Book (1992) begs the ethnic Greek minority at 8 percent of the total Albanian population. The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization estimate the Greek minority at 8.75 percent of the total Albanian population.
Greek sources have argued that the ethnic Greek minority is between 250,000 to 300,000. The Albanian authorities dispute these figures. However, most Western sources put the number at around 200,000.
“The 2011 census is regarded as unreliable and inaccurate by the Council of Europe, showing incompatibility with protection of national minorities. Also, the World Council of Churches sent letters to United Nations Human Rights Council regarding the matter, having conducted its own questionnaire which showed major irregularities.” [Wikipedia, Demographics of Albania]
The census law included “ethnicity;” however, the law was struck down and anyone asking to declare ethnicity, religion or mother tongue was subject to a fine of $1,000. The Greek minority boycotted the census.
Greek members of the European Parliament – Nikolaos Chountis and Manolis Kefalogiannis – raised these serious irregularities and violations to the Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, but it fell on deaf ears.
The Commissioner did not take any action, in fact was noted in the first report on the Albanian’s accession that progress was made, without addressing these irregularities and human rights violation.
For accession to proceed, the first set of fundamentals issues that Albania and the other country candidates involved must addressed the maters in the five chapters concerning: the judiciary authority and fundamental rights; the judiciary, freedom, and security; public procurement; statistics; and financial controls.
Albania has a long history of human rights violations against the Greek minority. And it seems the government’s stand is not about to change for the time being.
On the contrary, the Commissioner asked the 27 European Union member-states to agree to permit the opening of Albania negotiations of the first package of accession chapters. Greece did not agree to allow the report to stand and proceed with the second phase of the accession due to the ongoing violations of the rights of Fredi Beleri, an ethnic Greek was jailed just before he was elected mayor of Himara in the country’s local elections.
Beleri is charged with vote-buying and his case is tied up in the Albania court system and he will be stuck there for a long time.
Beleri’s lawyers claim that the police framed him using an undercover agent to entrap him. His legal team announced that it will be bringing a lawsuit against the police chief of Himara and the informer on whose testimony the police based the charges of the case.
In March 2024, he was sentenced to two years in prison for vote buying.
In the meantime, Greek Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has placed Beleri’s name on the New Democracy Euro Candidate list for the June 2024 Euro Parliamentary elections.