The continuous instability in Albania may have serious consequences for the region, the US global intelligence company Stratfor warns.

The power of the government in Tirana is always weak because of the great division of society into clans and the significant impact of criminal groups. Therefore Albania may easily plunge into chaos, which may have serious regional consequences for two reasons.

First, the EU member states, Italy and Greece, fear a wave of legal and illegal Albanian migrants. One of the biggest reasons for the UN intervention led by Italy in 1997 was Rome’s concern that the anarchy in Albania is going to induce a sweeping wave of Albanian migrants.

Second, most Western countries consider the Albanian criminal groups as the second most powerful networks of organized crime in Europe after the Russian mafia. The anarchy in 1997 made it possible for enormous amounts of weapons from the Albanian army arsenal to end up in the hands of the criminal groups that either sold them or gave them to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In fact, the violence of 1997 helped the NLA arm itself and oppose the Serb forces, which then led to the NATO intervention against Belgrade in 1999 and the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo in 2008.

No matter the form of the protests in the future, Albania’s instability is an important regional issue. Aside from the criminal groups profiting from the destabilization and the illegal migrants, there are still unresolved issues concerning the Albanians in Macedonia and the dispute between Belgrade and Pristina about Kosovo’s independence. Berisha benefited personally from the Serbian-Albanian conflict in 1999 because he used it to divert the citizens’ attention from the failed economic policies. This helped Berisha and his party restore themselves to power in 2005, which is a remarkable achievement bearing in mind that his previous government backed the pyramidal scheme that triggered anarchy in the country.