Edi Rama, Albania’s unconventional PM who wants to escape the ‘curse of history’
The artist and ex-basketball player faces an uphill battle to put Albania on the path to EU membership
Albania’s prime minister, Edi Rama, wants to be the man who puts his country on the path to European Union membership, but he is facing two major problems.
In Europe, enlargement-fatigued leaders are playing hardball, wary of accepting new potential members at a time of rising populist and Euro-pessimist sentiment, while at home Rama is facing weekly demonstrations against his rule, from an opposition that is also pro-EU but accuses his government of corruption and links to organised crime, and is demanding early elections.