Albania is bracing itself for the risk that turmoil in Greece, its southern neighbour, will force tens of thousands of migrant Albanian workers to return home, cutting off remittances to hard-pressed families in one of post-communist eastern Europe’s poorest states. Government ministers in Tirana express confidence that Albania’s financial system can ride out the storm, even though three banks in Albania are Greek-owned and control almost 16 per cent of all assets in the Albanian banking sector. The concerns about the possible return of migrants underline that Albania and other Balkan states, rather than Greece’s Eurozone partners, could be the first to feel the economic and social ripple effects of the crisis in Athens. About 12 per cent of Albania’s 3.2m people live below the World Bank-defined poverty line of $2 a day. Albanian migrant workers have been going to Greece since the early 1990s.