Albanian President Ilir Meta declared today he will not recognize and decree the unilateral changes to the Constitution. The President told media reporters in a press conference that Premier Edi Rama’s previous move to ban the pre-election coalition nullifies the agreement reached on June 5 between the majority and non-parliamentary opposition.

“I will exercise all my constitutional functions to prevent such an unprecedented act in three decades of pluralism. Such an act will not be recognized by the President of the Republic”, Meta stated, explaining his reasons.

First, “the parliament does not have the legitimacy to make constitutional changes. It has only 82 legitimate MPs, including the three MPs of the opposition. After the relinquishment en bloc of the mandates from 58 opposition MPs, the parliament has formally 122 members. The Electoral Code has not been respected for the replacement of the mandates. The Electoral Code forbids the relinquishment of mandates en bloc and none of them was called to the Central Electoral Commission (KQZ) to relinquish their mandates”, the President explained.

Secondly, “the Constitution and the Electoral Code forbid the modification of the Constitution during an extraordinary situation and the request of the parliamentary opposition was made during the period of pandemic, when the extraordinary situation was still in effect”.

The President declared all the political actors, both domestic and international, are against Rama and his move.

“The agreement of June 5 was strongly supported by the representatives of the international community in Tirana and was welcomed by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Commissioner Joseph Barel and the enlargement commissioner Oliver Varhelyi… The proposal for changes nullifies the efforts. The parties must respect the agreement, the unilateral modifications are against the Venice Commission.”, Meta said.