TIRANA, July 5, 2023 – The 42nd U.S. President Bill Clinton has received a rockstar welcome in Tirana, cheered on by a crowd at a ceremony in his honor in front of the Albanian Prime Minister’s Office on Monday.
The former U.S. president is cherished in Albania and Kosovo for his positive role and leadership in protecting ethnic Albanians during the 1999 Kosovo War. Bill Clinton served as the U.S. President from 1993 to 2001, completing two terms.
-Medal and praise-
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama awarded the Star of Appreciation for Public Achievement Medal to Clinton for his role in Kosovo. A group of children and young people from Kosovo, all of whom were given names related to Clinton to honor his help for Kosovo Albanians, spoke at a ceremony, in a surprise dedication for the former president.
“I will treasure this moment of honor all my life. I always wanted to come here. The U.S. is committed to the freedom, strength and integrity of Albania,” Clinton said at the ceremony.
He emphasized how during these two decades he was constantly surrounded by the gratitude and love of Albanians everywhere in the world for the decisions that were taken against Serbian violence in Kosovo.
Prime Minister Rama praised Mr. Clinton’s decision to intervene in Kosovo in 1999.
“Albania is the most pro-American country that can be found today. We are a country of eagles and we are very glad that this is true. Clinton taught us that to have hope is to believe. That there are only bad regimes and governments and there are never bad peoples,” said Mr. Rama.
-Clinton weighs in on current Kosovo crisis-
During his visit to Albania, former U.S. President Clinton also addressed the current crisis in northern Kosovo, emphasizing the need for a resolution to ease tensions between the Prishtina government and the Serb minority in the country, as well as with Belgrade.
Speaking in Tirana on July 3, Clinton expressed his regret over the ongoing dispute in Kosovo.
With a Serb boycott, minority Albanian candidates were able to win the mayoral posts in four Serb-majority municipalities with a minimum number of votes, leading to violent protests by many local Serbs after Kosovar authorities defied Western warnings and used force to install the winners in city halls.
Clinton said the Kosovo people “created those four towns for the benefit of the Serbs….So I think that they [Serb residents] made a mistake not to vote.”
“I think it is easy for the Albanians, now in the majority [in Kosovo], to try to take advantage of the moment to make their point, but the real thing we need to do is to stop this nonsense…What big political issue can be advanced by having these tensions? The people in those municipalities need decent government and citizens need to vote,” Clinton said.
The protests last month turned violent, resulting in injuries among NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers and demonstrators. U.S. and EU diplomats advised Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti to calm the situation in the north, conduct new municipal elections, and resume dialogue with Serbia to normalize relations. Additionally, diplomats have long urged Belgrade to take steps towards normalization, although it continues to deny recognition of Kosovo.
Kosovo, predominantly inhabited by ethnic Albanians, declared independence in 2008, which was acknowledged by several Western states but not recognized by Serbia, Russia or China.
Clinton’s efforts to end the conflict have garnered him popularity in Kosovo and Albania. In 2019, Kosovar President Hashim Thaci awarded Clinton the Freedom Order in appreciation of his role in ending the war.
-Private visit doesn’t escape political implications-
During his remarks on July 3, Clinton, though no longer involved in the current administration of President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, expressed his conviction that the United States remains dedicated to Albania’s freedom and strength.
Clinton emphasized during his speech that he was on a private visit, not an official one as he has retired from active politics, but the former president remains an eminence in the U.S. center-left Democratic Party.
Clinton was accompanied to Tirana by Alexander Soros, who recently took the helm of the business and philanthropic empire of his father, the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros, and who is known globally for advancing progressive political causes.
The younger Soros has increasingly taken an active role in the Western Balkans and visits Albania often. But he has also drawn the ire of Albania’s center-right opposition for his support of Albania’s ruling Socialist Party of Prime Minister Rama, which has taken on a dominant party role in the country, being completely in control of power at the national and central levels for more than a decade.
Almost all opposition representatives in Albania did not attend the ceremony to honor Clinton. It is unclear whether they were not invited or chose not to attend.
Several opposition representatives told the local media they honor Clinton and hold him in high regard for his positive legacy for Albanians, but the ceremony amounted to a PR campaign for Prime Minister Rama, who they say is mired in a series of scandals and is trying to use such ceremonies to draw attention away.
Several former Albanian presidents attended, but not the two who are currently actively involved with the opposition, Sali Berisha and Ilir Meta.
Albania’s current head of state was also missing from the ceremony. A spokesman for President Bajram Begaj said the absence was due to health issues.
