Democratic Party chairman Lulzim Basha said Albania will never be accepted and integrated in Europe as long as it will have prime ministers, ministers and deputies linked to crime. Basha was speaking in the Balkanic conference “30 years later, what’s keeping Balkans out of EU? Women’s role in the process of integration”, organized by the Democratic League of Albanian Women and EPP Women Forum with the support of Konrad Adenauer and Hans Seidel Foundations.

“The partnership between criminality and politics has reached the most unimaginable level; it has seized the Albanian parliament. Four years ago, our main problem was cannabis. Now it is cannabis, cocaine, heroin and laundering of dirty money”, Basha said, explaining the dirty money goes to the construction and gambling industries.

“Crime has the control now. In Shkodër, Vlorë, Durrës, Elbasan, anywhere in Albania, the crime controls the cities, the neighborhoods. It’s the crime that controls the territory and the economy; the government has no longer the control in its hands”.