Albanian government

Pressure is growing on the Albanian government over its "anti-defamation" laws, after the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, CoE, said it had asked its advisory body, the Venice Commission, for its opinion.

A new draft law on citizenship adopted by the Albanian government, due to be approved by parliament, will allow Albanians living abroad to acquire Albanian citizenship more easily.

The only precondition would be to prove that their ancestors had Albanian citizenship.

Faik Nika, the president of the Albanian National Council, said on Friday that the Albanian government will give financial support for the first time to assist the running of his organisation and its office in the municipality of Plav.

Nika told Montenegrin media the Albanian government has recently made three very important decisions for the Albanian community in Montenegro.

Seven international rights organisations have urged politicians of all sides in polarised Albania to stop their smear campaigns against journalists, and have urged the authorities to fully investigate recent unresolved attacks on reporters. They also urged the media community to show solidarity and report cases of threats and intimidation.

Starting this week, Ethnic Albanians from Montenegro and North Macedonia now have the same access to jobs in Albania as locals, according to a decision made by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama's cabinet, which was made public on Monday.

Less than a week after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras warned Albania that Tirana's moves to seize seaside properties of members of the Greek minority in the city of Himara will hinder Tirana's EU course, Tsipras discussed the issue in a telephone conversation with his Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama, today.

Bidding to defuse recent tensions, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke on the phone with his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama on Thursday, in the wake of last week's bilateral crisis sparked by a call published in the Albanian government gazette for the seizure of properties belonging to members of the ethnic Greek minority in the town of Himara.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras reacted strongly to a move by the Albanian government of Edi Rama to effectively expropriate large tracts of prime seaside properties owned by members of the Greek minority in the upscale coastline town of Himara and neighbouring Sarande.

The Albanian government removed from its gazette a law that would allow the arbitrary nationalization of land belonging to the ethnic Greek families in the south of the country, a diplomatic source from the Greek foreign ministry said on Saturday.

The European Federation of Journalists, European Centre for Press & Media Freedom, PEN International and Reporters Without Borders criticised on Wednesday new restrictive laws on online media in Albania.

The laws were proposed by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama as part of his drive against "defamation".