Displaying items by tag: Albania

One in eight young people seeking asylum in the UK are from the impoverished Balkan state of Albania. There is little to do in Skenderbeu, a remote town in the mountains where jobs are few and poverty rife. Edison sees only one way out: ‘I want to go to England for a better life. I’ll do any work. My brother and my friends have already gone. I’m jealous. This is my dream.’ His brother left the town four years ago, one of hundreds of boys from this region - some as young as thirteen - whose families pay thousands of pounds to people-smugglers to take them to Britain. Every family seems to have at least one relative in London, many of whom end up working illegally on building sites or in car washes. The little town survives on money sent from Britain. Officials estimate youth unemployment in Albania could be as high at 80%.

Albania’s main religion is Islam. In the 1990s the country ended 46 years of communism and established a multiparty democracy. Successive governments have coped with high unemployment, corruption, organised crime networks, and shady political opponents and progressed with political and economic reforms, taking the first steps towards joining the EU. Albania is still one of the poorest countries in Europe, hampered by a large informal economy and inadequate energy and transportation infrastructures. The elections were held without any centre-right opposition. On 5 May Macedonia's parliament speaker asked President Tomislav Nikolić to recognise a majority of Social Democrats and ethnic Albanian members of parliament so they could form a new government, but he refused. Germany and the USA will recognise the election outcome even without the opposition’s participation. See