Transcript of interview of EU Ambassador Christiane Hohmann with Elja Zotka on Klan TV

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Transcript of interview of EU Ambassador Christiane Hohmann with Elja Zotka on Klan TV

17.08.2023 Press and information team of the Delegation to Albania

© Florion Goga/Europe House

Ambassador Hohmann, you are leaving Albania before the end of your mandate, do you feel regret?

Yes, there is regret, because like for every diplomat who comes to a country, one year is not enough, because you've just gotten to know the country, you've just started to work and then you are leaving again. So it feels like I have opened many doors but have not managed to close any, which is a big regret. The second regret is that I have not managed to discover the whole beauty of Albania. I've travelled quite a bit, but there are so many things I haven't seen, so many people I didn't have time to meet, so that is what I was sad about. What I have seen is exciting, is a highly dynamic country and I think that is something, hopefully, Albania will keep, the dynamics that things are moving. It's not at standstill and there are developments that actually are bringing the country closer to the European Union, because this is our joined endeavor, this is what we are working on. Are we there yet? No, but we are going there step by step, because this is not an easy process, this is not something you do in a year or two, it takes longer, because is a big change for the whole society. And I would have wished that I could have been on the side of Albania for longer, which would have been another three years, unfortunately.

How would you evaluate the progress of the screening process? Are you optimistic, as the representatives of the government say that within this year the second Inter-Governmental between Albania and the EU can be held, paving the way for the opening of the negotiation chapters?

I was lucky when I came because it was just after the first IGC, so I actually came with a new movement in the country, and with an actual progress, so we have done very well in the screening process as you mentioned and we have the screening report of the very first, the fundamental cluster that has been given to the EU Member States to discuss. So I am optimistic that this discussion is actually going where we want it to go, which is to pave the way to have the second IGC and to actually open the negotiations on the fundaments, because then we have to clear the whole work, we have to clear things that will have to be done to actually accompany the negotiations and to fulfil the criteria to come closer to the European Union, particularly on the fundamentals because they are sort of the basis for everything else that will follow on the other chapters and clusters later on. So also for the population of Albania, I hope that we take this very important step, because it shows that we are moving forward and we are moving straight into one direction, which I think is the big one, the important one, which is eventually to join the European Union.

One of the most important chapters is undoubtedly the one related to justice. How do you evaluate the current work of SPAK? We have an arrest warrant for the former No. 2 of the government, although still unexecuted, but also some former mayors behind bars.

By the end of last year we actually could see now that this structural form of SPAK was complete with the MBI, the investigators being there and we always said about that, now we need implementation. It is no mora to build up now, what we need is a track record, as we call it. And I think it is quite impressive what has been achieved, because collecting enough evidence to have a case to get an arrest for it and actually to get it to a court is very important and is not easy. So it is important that SPAK actually delivers and I think that the arrest warrant that is still outstanding for the number two of the government is one of the examples but there are many more. But it needs so much more to fight corruption as an overall phenomenon in the country because it is not only in the high circles , it is something that goes through society and this is where everyone in this country is concerned, where everyone can also contribute, by number one saying no, you don't ask for a bribe and you don't pay a bribe. That would be a change as well and that does not need SPAK, that needs every individual to become active.

What about the fact that corruption has affected such high levels in the executive, do you have a comment?

I think it's a cancer that every society has to fight, and is a hard fight and a continuous fight, because even western societies are not free of corruption, so there is no completely white past, but is something that takes day to day commitment to fight it at very single level and not to make it an acceptable thing phenomenon in a society.

What is the truth of the interruption of IPARD funds to the Albanian agriculture?

We are in the middle of a process where we had people who actually complained about mismanagement of funds within the IPARD agency so the Brussels' institution called OLAF, which is making sure that the fraud is pursued, actually looks into the matter, and they did an investigation. So what they have done now, they finished the investigation and they actually informed the European Commission about their preliminary findings. We have not seen the final report yet. So these preliminary findings say that there is a problem, and then automatically there is a duty of the European Commission to protect EU funds, which after all is taxpayers' money of European citizens. So this is where we are at the moment, is the protection time. At this moment in time, we stop everything before we get the final report and then we can get at the bottom of it, but it does not mean that agriculture and farmers are not doing a good job. It is one that there was obviously something that did not work correctly in the use of the funds, in the impropriation, but on the other hand there is also the honest work done by the farmers. So I thing we need to distinguish between what do we see can be done on the ground and what happened here, and we need to go to the bottom of it. But it doesn't mean that there is no more assistance available, it is now that we clean this up and we continue.

During the time that you headed the EU office in Tirana, there was a continuous communication with the government structures for the initiative of the majority for the criminal and fiscal amnesty. Currently, in your opinion, is this draft close to the recommendations that could be accepted by the Union?

We are still in the middle of work on it, so we are far from done, but we are still looking into the individual aspects of this draft legislation.

In the last session, the Parliament passed the law on medical cannabis and the EU did not embrace this initiative without reservations. Do you think that after the fight for decades to fight this phenomenon, the Albanian law enforcement agencies are able to properly implement this law and not open the way to abuses that help the traffic of narcotics?

In a certain way I am the wrong person to ask because I am not part of the law enforcement in Albania but in a lot of issues that are for the implementation in this legislation will have to be put into by-laws. They are not in the legislation in itself, so we will have to see how the by-laws will be formulated and developed, because it is exactly if you want to do this, than you need to have the rule of law structures in place, efficiently in place to make exactly that distinction between the legal use and the illegal use, and that is where the by-laws will be crucial.

What about the political situation in the country, about the division of the opposition, do you a comment? Do you think that the fact that we have an opposition that is in this state makes the majority more solid and arrogant?

I think that the EU integration is a topic that actually unites both the opposition and the majority party, which is still a big, big plus in Albania, so don't have an anti-European, an anti-EU movement, which is a huge difference to other countries that are candidates for the European Union. So I think that is a unifying factor which hopefully will continue to be present. Of course variant democracy where alternatives are discussed, where solutions are discussed in parliament, but also in a variant political scene are really better in getting through these tremendous reforms that the country has to go through so I wish for this to become a more of an exchange of ideas to look for the best solution for Albania because this helps also to bring the process forward faster. So this is the challenge that I think is there for the country, but it is something for the country and the political elite of the country to solve and not for us as the bystanders.

And the last question. You will leave Albania to take up an important task, such as the position of German ambassador in Iraq. Of course, you will not miss the sun, because there is also a lot of sun there, but it is an area in conflict. How are you experiencing this new task and quite a few challenges await you, right?

So I am actually returning to the German Foreign Service to become the German Ambassador to Bagdad, Iraq. I think there are some similarities, it is a country that has a heavy historic burden. If we go thousands of years ago this is the creed of our cultures but at the same time they had a dictatorship that was semi communist, as well as Sadam Hussein, but they had devastating wars against Iran, Desert Storm 1 and 2, but then worse 2014-2017, the war of the Islamic State that literally conquered the whole country and only the allied forces helped the Iraqi democratic forces to come back to power. So it's a post conflict, not even a completely quite country, where all the development we are talking here stabilizing the politic arena, getting the economic development going, actually creating good education, healthcare, everything that is services that are much more in need of progress that they are in Albania. So this is one of the challenges to see that there is so much to do, that is much less stable, but is also in that sense much more exiting than in settled countries. I will not say that Albania is not exciting as a country because it is an incredible posting for any diplomat who gets the opportunity to come to Albania, it is exciting because of the people of Albania, of this incredible beautiful and hospitable country and that is what I am looking forward to when I need less sun and less heat, to come here and also to relax.