Fatos Thanas Nano ALBANIA

Prime Minister
(pronounced “FAH-toess TAHN-ahs NAH-no”)
''We [Balkan nations] all have the same priorities, but real change can happen
only if we build a regional authority to lead the way.”
The Republic of Albania is situated in southeastern Europe
and is bordered to the south by Greece, to the east by the
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), to the
north by Serbia and Montenegro, and to the west by the
Adriatic Sea. The total area is 28,748 sq km (17,864 sq mi),
of which over two-thirds is mountainous and the rest river
valleys and coastal lowlands.
The country’s total population was estimated at 3.5
million in July 2002. Over 95% are ethnic Albanian, with
Greeks comprising most of the rest. Outside of the country’s
borders live about an equal number of ethnic Albanians,
mainly in the Kosovo region within Serbia and Montenegro,
and also in Macedonia, Greece, and Italy. About 70% of the
population are Muslim; however, atheism is also widespread
as a result of an official ban on religious worship from the
1960s to 1990. By 2002 the government had relaxed this ban,
and the practice of religion increased slightly. The Albanian
language has two main dialects, Geg and Tosk (considered
the official dialect).
The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) was
estimated at US$13.2 billion in 2001, with per capita GDP
estimated at US$3,800 that year. The national currency is the
lek. Albania’s natural resources include oil, gas, coal, and
metals. Agriculture and mining constitute the largest industries.
Frequent drought, obsolete equipment, and the need to
consolidate numerous small farms have hampered the growth
of the agriculture sector.
POLITICAL BACKGROUND
Albania experienced a brief period of independence in the
fifteenth century but was otherwise subjected to foreign rule.
Independence was finally gained in 1912 after four and onehalf
centuries of Turkish Ottoman rule, and its national
boundaries were set for the first time in 1913. After World
War I, following a period of occupation by Italy, France, and
Yugoslavia, the national independent state of Albania was
reestablished. Italy occupied the country in 1939, forcing
Ahmet Zogu (who called himself King Zog I) into exile. The
Communist-led National Liberation Front (NLF) resistance
movement, assisted by Yugoslav partisans, took power in
November 1944. NLF leader, Enver Hoxha (1908–85),
headed both the Albanian Communist Party and the country
for four decades, until his death in 1985.
The Hoxha era was known for its extreme internal
repression and isolationist tendencies. Albanian industries
and agriculture were collectivized. The population was rigidly
controlled by the ruling Albanian Workers Party (the
Communist Party, known in 2003 as the Albanian Socialist
Party—PS) and its secret police apparatus. In foreign policy,
Hoxha’s regime pursued increasingly isolationist tendencies.
Albania broke away from Yugoslav tutelage after the 1948
split between Yugoslav leader Tito and Soviet leader Joseph
Stalin. Ties with the former Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (USSR) were broken in 1961, and Albania
withdrew from the Warsaw Pact in 1968. China became its
main ally in the 1960s, but that relationship cooled in the
1970s, leaving Albania almost completely isolated.
Albania was the last Eastern European country to embark
on democratization and market economic reforms in the
1980s. Hoxha’s successor, Ramiz Alia, was considered
somewhat less repressive and began to increase Albania’s
exposure to the outside world while maintaining the
Communist Party’s exclusive hold on power. Large demonstrations
in December 1990, triggered by widespread internal
unrest, pushed the Alia government to accept multiparty
elections. Albania held its first free elections in 45 years in
March 1991, with candidates from both the newly formed
Democratic Party (PD) and the Albanian Workers Party.
Although its fairness was questioned by outside observers, the
Albanian Workers Party (later renamed the Albanian Socialist
Party—PS) won two-thirds of the vote and formed a
government under Albanian Workers Party leader Fatos
Nano, who formed a government made up entirely of
Workers Party members. Following large-scale strikes and
demonstrations, the Nano government ceded power in June
1991 to a coalition government including the renamed
Socialist Party (PS) and the opposition Democratic Party.
Members of the PD were given most of the key economic
positions and were primarily responsible for initiating new
economic policies. However, in December 1991, frustrated by
their inability to pass any reforms, the PD withdrew from the
government, forcing new elections.
General elections held in March 1992 resulted in a
resounding victory for the PD, which gained 62% of the vote.
The PS won only 25% of the vote (down from more than
67% the previous year). In April 1992, Alia resigned as the
last Communist leader in Albania, and the new People’s
Assembly (Parliament) convened, electing PD chairman Sali
Berisha to the presidency. Berisha named Aleksander Meksi
prime minister, and members of the PD dominated his
cabinet. In the following years, the PD undertook measures to
stifle political opposition, including the arrest of opposition
political leaders.
Albania’s next parliamentary elections were held on 26
May and 2 June 1996. Amidst charges of voting fraud,
virtually all opposition parties pulled out before polling
ended and boycotted the second round. The Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), as well as other
international observers, noted serious irregularities during the
vote, including fraud, ballot stuffing, intimidation, and
coercion tactics. The PD won almost all of the parliamentary
seats. The new Parliament was inaugurated on 1 July, but the
PS boycotted the session. Berisha nominated a new
government under Prime Minister Meksi on 11 July 1996.
Beginning in late 1996, numerous popular yet high-risk
investment schemes collapsed, prompting violent riots in
many Albanian cities. Over the previous two years, the socalled
“pyramid schemes” promised exorbitant returns on
investment, attracting over us$1 billion from Albanian
citizens. The collapse of these schemes led to widespread
demonstrations, as many Albanians blamed the government
for corruption and mismanagement in regulating the
investment enterprises. In early March 1997, the demonstrations
turned into armed rebellion in numerous cities in the
south as anti-Berisha rebels stormed arms depots. Estimates
of the number of Albanians killed in the ensuing conflict
ranged from several hundred to 2,000. Thousands more fled
to Italy and other countries. After international mediation
and the installation of an international peacekeeping force,
Berisha dismissed the Meksi government, released Fatos
Nano from prison, pardoned him, and appointed him prime
minister. Berisha and Nano agreed to hold parliamentary
elections by June 1997.
New elections were held under close international scrutiny
on 29 June and 6 July 1997. The opposition PS won a
landslide victory at the expense of Berisha’s PD. In
Parliament, the PS won an absolute majority of 101 out of
155 seats. Berisha resigned on 23 July 1997. The Parliament
elected PS leader Rexhep Mejdani to the presidency. Mejdani
named Fatos Nano to be prime minister (for the second time)
of the PS-led government, which was sworn in on 25 July 1997.
Relations between the ruling PS and Berisha’s PD remained
extremely contentious after the 1997 vote. The PD called for
a boycott of some sessions of Parliament and favored early
elections. Albania appeared on the verge of chaos again in
mid-September 1998 when the murder of a prominent PD
member led to violent demonstrations. Government authorities
quickly regained control of sites that had been stormed
by PD supporters. Nano accused Berisha of attempting to
stage a coup. The United States, the European Union (EU),
and major international organizations condemned the
violence and appealed to all parties to work toward a
peaceful solution. Nano resigned at the end of September, and
the PS nominated Pandeli Majko to succeed him. Majko was
sworn in on 2 October 1998.
In spring 1999, in the wake of bloody conflict between
ethnic Albanians living in neighboring Kosovo and Serb
forces who wanted to reclaim the land there, thousands of
ethnic Albanians poured into the country, straining an
already weak economy. President Mejdani, hoping that
change might foster stability, appointed Ilir Meta to replace
Majko in the post of prime minister. On 27 October 1999,
Meta took over the post, but he was unable to bring an end to
the conflict among factions in the Albanian government. In
late January 2002, Meta resigned suddenly over unresolved
conflicts with PS leader Fatos Nano. President Mejdani
replaced Meta with his predecessor, Pandeli Majko, as prime
minister. Majko, like Meta, could not bring the factions into
alignment; he resigned in July 2002, to be replaced by Fatos
Nano.
PERSONAL BACKGROUND
Fatos Thanas Nano was born 16 September 1952 in the
capital, Tirana. His family was Albanian Orthodox Christian,
but religion was officially banned in Albania in 1960.
However, religious identity persisted in a subtle way, and
Christians were a minority, representing an estimated 20% of
the population, with Muslims representing the majority
(70%). His father, Thanas Nano, was a journalist who
directed the state radio and television broadcasts during the
decades of Communist control of the government.
Fatos Nano studied economics at the University of Tirana;
he graduated in 1975 with a degree in political economy. He
spent the following years as a researcher and lecturer in
agricultural economics. In 1990, he entered government
service when he was appointed by President Ramiz Alia to
serve as secretary general of the Council of Ministers (the
prime minister’s cabinet).
Nano has two grown children. He is fluent in Italian and
English, and is proficient in Russian, French, Serbian, and
Spanish. In addition, he has some ability to communicate in
Greek.
ROMANIA
BULGARIA
GREECE
VATICAN
CITY
SAN
MARINO
ITALY
SLOVAKIA
HUNGARY
AUSTRIA
BOSNIAHERZEGOVINA
CROATIA
SLOVENIA
ALBANIA MACEDONIA
UKRAINE
Skopje
Zagreb
Belgrade
Ljubljana
Sarajevo Sofia
Tirana
Rome
Venice
Florence
Naples
Peloponnesus
Patras
Ioánnina
Pristinà
Graz
Pécs
Cluj-Napoca
Salonika
Palermo
Tyrrhenian
Sea
Ionian
Sea
Adriatic Sea
Danube
Sicily
Corfu
ALBANIA
0 300 Miles
0 100 200 300 Kilometers
100 200
SERBIA &
MONTENEGRO
RISE TO POWER
In December 1990, widespread civil unrest forced President
Ramiz Alia to allow multiparty elections. He acted quickly to
reorganize the cabinet, and Fatos Nano was among his
appointments. Nano, named secretary general of the Council
of Ministers, served briefly as deputy prime minister for
economic reform in the months leading up to the March 1991
elections. Since then, Fatos Nano has never been far from the
political fray in Albania.
Although the fairness of the 1991 election—the first multiparty
election in over five decades—was questioned by
outside observers, the voting was viewed as a first step in
Albania’s transition to democracy. The Albanian Workers
Party (later renamed the Albanian Socialist Party—PS) won
two-thirds of the vote and formed a government under Fatos
Nano. Following large-scale strikes and demonstrations, the
Nano government ceded power in June 1991, and Nano
resigned.
The Albanian Workers Party reorganized as the Socialist
Party and held its founding congress in June 1991. Nano,
after having been forced to resign the prime minister post,
was elected chairman of the PS, and won election to
Parliament. The coalition government included the PS and the
opposition PD. Nano won reelection to Parliament in 1992,
but he was unable to fulfill his term. In July 1993, he was
arrested on charges of corruption, including misappropriation
of state funds, dereliction of duty, and falsifying
documents. He was found guilty and sentenced to 12 years in
prison. Amnesty International and other human rights groups
declared the trial improper. While in prison, Nano was
reelected chair of the PS in August 1996.
The economic crisis caused by the collapse of the pyramid
investment schemes triggered widespread social unrest. In
early March 1997, desperate to restore order, President
Berisha dismissed the Meksi government, released Fatos
Nano and others from prison, and issued pardons. Berisha
then appointed Nano prime minister. Berisha and Nano
agreed to hold parliamentary elections by June 1997. Nano
was named prime minister, but his term would last just until
October 1998, when continuing upheaval in the government
forced his resignation; the PS nominated Pandeli Majko to
succeed him. In November, Nano resigned as head of the PS.
Although not officially leading the PS, Nano continued to
wield power over the next 11 months. Nano supported the
government headed by Prime Minister Majko, but his faction
within the PS continued to battle head-to-head with the
faction led by Ilir Meta. In the face of growing violent conflict
between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in neighboring Serbia,
President Rexhep Mejdani named Ilir Meta prime minister;
Meta took office in October 1999. When the PS held their
congress that month, Nano was returned to the chairmanship.
Meta was unable to bring stability to the
government, although his PS would maintain their dominant
position in the Parliament, even with a slim majority (73 of
140 seats) following the June 2001 elections. Meta resigned
in June 2002, to be replaced by Majko.
The loyalties of the PS representatives were divided
between Meta and Nano. Majko was seen as a possible
mediator between the two factions, and his confirmation by
Parliament in March 2002 supported that hope. Nano was
not inclined toward compromise or conciliation. PS infighting
continued to exacerbate the country’s ills.
On 15 July 2002, the PS’s steering committee passed a
resolution that the party’s chairman should hold the post of
prime minister. Ten days later, on 25 July 2002, Pandeli
Majko resigned after only five months as prime minster.
Majko stated that he hoped his resignation would bring an
end to the conflict between factions of the PS. On 29 July,
President Alfred Moisiu appointed Fatos Nano prime
minister, and Nano took office two days later, on 31 July.
Nano and Meta appear to have reached a delicate
compromise. When Nano formed a government, it included
Ilir Meta as deputy prime minister and foreign minister, and
Pandeli Majko as minister of defense.
LEADERSHIP
While Nano has been at or close to the seat of power in the
Albanian government since 1990, his ongoing disputes with
Ilir Meta contributed to instability in the late 1990s through
2002. As of July 2002, it appeared that the factions had
finally found a way to coexist and perhaps even cooperate.
Nano, in an address given in 2002 at the start of his threeyear
term as prime minister, noted his priorities for the new
government: improving the economy; fighting smuggling,
corruption, and terrorism; and preparing for talks on the
Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU.
DOMESTIC POLICY
While there was no shortage of challenges facing Nano’s
government in 2003, the problem of infighting and turmoil
that characterized Albanian politics in the first years of the
twenty-first century seemed to be resolved.
The government continues to grapple with such basic and
urgent problems as providing electricity to its citizenry, while
developing a plan to curb the country’s widespread and
sophisticated organized crime.
In the late 1990s, Ilir Meta’s government introduced
reforms to restructure the judiciary system and to stem the
decades-long practice of bribes for judicial action. Continuing
these reforms is crucial for Albania to be successful in their
quest to join the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO).
Albania’s future is closely tied to support from international
organizations such as the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the World Bank. In January 2003, Nano signed a
memorandum with the IMF that outlined the government’s
2003 plans for stabilizing the country’s economic and
political structure. The plans set goals of 6% real economic
growth, inflation held between 2–4%, and the budget deficit
maintained at just over 6%. Nano described the
memorandum as “an important commitment for 2003 that
reconfirms the successful and serious cooperation of Albania
with the IMF.”
FOREIGN POLICY
Nano served as chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the
government of Ilir Meta, and was the first representative of
the Albanian government to visit Yugoslavia after the two
countries reestablished relations in December 2001.
In 2002, Nano’s predecessor, Pandeli Majko, participated
in a number of international meetings, including one in
Bucharest, Romania, of the heads of the ten countries
(Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia) that are candidates
for membership in NATO. The prospect of joining
NATO has widespread support in Albania, but the country
must demonstrate firm commitment to economic and judicial
reforms to gain membership.
Another notable meeting was Majko’s March 2002 visit
with the ambassador from China. That nation was formerly
one of Albania’s closest allies, although relations cooled
during the 1970s and had not recovered as of the end of the
twentieth century. The Chinese are particularly interested in
becoming involved in the construction of a dam and hydroelectric
power plant in Albania, a project under consideration
for funding by the IMF and the World Bank that would
bolster Albania’s inadequate power supply.
The EU has been working with Albania since the late
1990s on an SAA. A draft, presented in November 2001, was
aimed at preparing Albania for eventual EU membership.
Stabilizing the government is a necessary first step, and the
EU wants Albania to clean up its election procedures, to
privatize the country’s banks, to eliminate political interference
in the court system, and to improve management of
the country’s electric utilities.
Every Albanian prime minister must try to convince other
governments that his government will soon restore order to
Albanian politics, and Nano appeared to be achieving some
success in the months following his taking office in July 2002.
By October, the EU agreed to reopen negotiations with
Albania on the SAA, and established February 2003 as the
date for the next round of negotiations.
As of 2002, Greece held the rotating EU presidency, and
Greek foreign minister George Papandreou listed EU ratification
of SAA accords for Albania and Macedonia and their
Balkan neighbors as a top priority. Thus, Nano realized that,
with Greece as an important ally, Albania needed to work
quickly and with commitment to achieve the goals of the
SAA. He aggressively sought support from Albania’s
neighbors in the Balkans to form a regional Parliament as
evidence that the days of factional squabbling in the region
are in the past.
ADDRESS
Office of the Prime Minister
Tirana, Albania
REFERENCES
“Albania, EU Agree to Start SAA Talks Soon,” Xinhua News
Agency, January 14, 2003, p. 1008014h5713.
“Albanian Parliament Approves New Government,” Xinhua
News Agency, July 31, 2002, p. 1008212h0878.
“Albanian PM Hails Talks on Stability-Association
Agreement with EU,” Xinhua News Agency, October 22,
2002, p. 1008294h7455.
“Albanian Premier Says 2003 Memo Signed with IMF
‘Important Commitment,’” Asia Africa Intelligence Wire,
January 8, 2003.
“Fatos Nano,” International Who’s Who 2003, London:
Europa Publications, 2003.
“Fatos Nano,” Political/Economic Section, U.S. Embassy,
Tirana, November 2002.
Frosina Information Network, http://www.frosina.org
(accessed January 22, 2003).
“Just for Show: Albania,” The Economist (US), April 9,
1994, vol. 331, no. 7858, p. 53+.
Simpson, Daniel. “In Albania Politics, Are the Changes Skin-
Deep?” New York Times, November 21, 2002, p. 4.
“UK Reportedly Wants to See Albania in NATO ‘Very
Soon’,” Asia Africa Intelligence Wire, October 12, 2002.
Profile researched and written by Susan Gall (3/2002).