Deputy assistant secretary of state Hoyt Brian Yee, the so-called The Bulldozer, is expected to visit our country again in the coming days. His visit comes a little bit strange now when the hot issues of the political conflict, such as the boycott of the elections from the opposition, tent of freedom and vetting now have been solved. Especially considering Mr. Yee himself is on duty only for 3-4 more weeks. Knowing his visit is not a thanksgiving tour, the reasons for his rush just days before leaving the post are really intriguing; even though I am pretty sure Mr. Rama and Mr. Basha know those reasons already.

On May 17^th, the House Foreign Affairs Committee had a hearing on the situation in the Balkans. Called to testify, Hoyt Yee made a strange and unprecedented statement; he said that the Bureau of Eurasian Affairs in the Department of State had not coordinated its policies on the Balkans with the President Trump administration.

In an event without any relation with what said above, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an electoral rally that Germany and Europe could no longer lean on outer powers, implying the United States, so Europe had to take its fate in its hands. Despite the fact Chancellor Merkel was referring to the G7 Summit in Sicily, the independence she meant was not the political-economical but the military one and connects directly to NATO and European defense. The fact that NATO is 70 years old and President Trump has only four months in office shows clearly it is not the Americans that are abandoning Europe, but it’s Merkel the one that pushes on Europe to abandon NATO.

This becomes even more evident now that UK will no longer be a part of the European Union, losing its veto against the creation of a defensive force outside NATO. The first Secretary General of NATO, Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay (in the years 1952-57) once said “NATO was created to keep Americans inside, Russians outside and Germans down”. Strangely or not, Merkel’s thesis was supported by her Social-Democrat opponent Martin Schulz. With a German (by origin) in the White House, apparently the world is small for two Germans. The US-German relations have been for 70 years the backbone of the Euro-Atlantic relations. It looks like the mutual hate between Trump and Merkel feeds upon the friendship between Merkel and Barack Obama (the friendliest relations of two leaders in the history of US-German relations). It is not merely a hate between two individuals, but a clash of two different philosophies. Relationships that, as a consequence, will make the two countries become distant.

Returning to Albania and the region, it’s worthy to underline that during President Obama’s mandates the US political and diplomatic presence in the Balkans was lukewarm and gradually vanished, leaving space for the German influence to grow. The Chancellor herself considered the relation with the Balkans  as a personal initiative, aiming that, through the so-called the Process of Berlin, to keep the regions countries engaged in the relations with the Union but also with each-other, as a mechanism to blanket the conflicts. In the function of this policy, also with the long-term goal of these countries’ membership in the EU, Merkel started a confidential initiative under the table for the crated of a customs-free (initially) pan-Balkanic space, which would lead later to the creation of a new political Balkanic unit – the new Yugoslavia – that would eventually become a member of the European Union, when EU would also be ready to accept it. Till then, these countries would take a number of inner steps in the fields of economy, order and security, fight against crime and particularly against corruption, hence the so called big Judiciary Reform. In Albania it was called the Judiciary Reform, then vetting, in Macedonia it started to take place through the Special Prosecution Office, in Kosovo it is expected through the Special Court. To make all this possible, Berli and consequently Brussels insisted on reaching a broad local consensus for the implementation of the so called big reforms and lead to broad-based governments in Serbia (Vucic with Dacic), Kosovo (LDK with PDK) and Macedonia, with the forced technical government after the wiretapping scandal. It’s evident all three failed. The most typical case is that of Kosovo, where, due to the forced coalition, not only were not reached the goal set by Berlin and Brussels, such as

i) The Stabilisation and Association Agreement

ii)Visas liberalization

iii) Demarcation

iv) Special Court, with the country going to anticipated elections and with Ibrahim Rugova’s big party risking to become a third force.

When Hoyt Yee planned his first visit to Albania, his goal was to understand what was happening and had no intention to go deep into the political conflict. After Merkel’s envoy McAllister failed to convince Basha to accept his solution package, Yee’s visit became of utmost importance. He took the plane to Tirana, “with the stick and without the carrot” for Basha. The situation changed unexpectedly when, while he had arrived in Tirana, a long call came from the seventh floor in the Foggy Bottom. Not only Basha was not punished, but, thanks to intervention and threats of people from the new administration of President Trump, Premier Rama was forced to accept the agreement McAlister +.

Rama was forced to accept the agreement we all know, hoping his new and powerful lobbyists (who are paid 11 times more than his public contract) would be able to arrange a short meeting with President Trump in the last week’s NATO summit. Despite powerful links of Rama’s lobbyists with the new administration, the official response was “not in a million years”, adding that Rama’s statements against Trump were scripted and put in the President’s personal file with the information on the NATO leaders that were present in the summit.  

While the desire of Chancellor Merkel, as protector of Balkans so far, for a post-electoral coalition between PD and PS is clear, the US future high officials (waiting for Senate approval in the next 2-4 weeks) have not hesitated to show their disapproval against such a coalition. The meeting of President Trump with Italian Presidenti Mattarella (not the one with Premier Gentiloni) is expected to have influence in the political developments in this side of the Adriatic too.

Returning to Yee’s statement in the House of Congress and adding this situation, his rushed visit truly raises many questions: Has anyone asked for a US seal on the big agreement?

SYRI.net