Greek government picks EU election wild card — from an Albanian jail

Greece’s ruling party has made one especially contentious choice to run in June’s European elections: Fredi Beleri, the jailed mayor-elect of the town of Himarë on the Albanian riviera.

Beleri’s imprisonment is a cause célèbre in Greece because he is an ethnic Greek and tensions between Athens and Tirana over his detention now threaten to weigh on Albania’s push to join the EU.

Το Greeks, Beleri is a victim of trumped-up political charges, while to Albanians, he is a more menacing figure, associated with armed insurrection by the ethnic Greek minority. He was also widely viewed as a key opponent to the Albanian government in a fight over the seizure of properties belonging to ethnic Greeks around Himarë.

For the conservative New Democracy party of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, choosing Beleri as a candidate in the European Parliament vote required a delicate political calculus.

In supporting a jailed ethnic Greek, New Democracy can flaunt its patriotic credentials and seek to counteract a surge in support for far-right parties, including the nationalist Greek Solution and ultra-Orthodox ‘Victory’ party.

“Beleri’s candidacy has a very heavy symbolism. All those who are really interested — and not just paying lip-service — in the Greek ethnic minority’s rights in Albania, understand it,” Mitsotakis said on Thursday, in a press conference in Brussels.

On the other hand, choosing a man with a murky past who is serving a two-year jail-term for vote buying is hardly without risks. For one thing, it is bound to rekindle long-running grievances with Tirana and annoy supporters of EU enlargement, who argue New Democracy is poisoning the process by taking a bilateral dispute over rule of law to a European level.

Given that Greek MEP slots go to the candidates that win the most popular support, there is every chance that Beleri, who was sentenced to two years behind bars in March, could win a place in the European Parliament. New Democracy is expected to dominate in the June poll.

Greece’s foreign ministry was wary of playing politics with Beleri and expressed “strong reservations” about his candidacy, several officials told POLITICO.

“The decision on Beleri’s candidacy had to weigh the electoral gain for the ruling party and the support of the patriotic right action within the New Democracy party on the one hand, against relations with Albania and the majority of Greece’s European partners on the other,” said Loukas Tsoukalis, professor at Sciences Po, Paris.

“The decision taken by the Greek prime minister shows that the scales finally tipped in favor of the first front.”

The backstory

Beleri was elected mayor of Himar¨ë, a bastion of the ethnic Greek community, in the May 14 local elections last year.

Given that Greek MEP slots go to the candidates that win the most popular support, there is every chance that Fredi Beleri could win a place in the European Parliament. | Oliver Hoslet/EPA-EFE

He was arrested only two days earlier while allegedly offering 40,000 Albanian leks ($390 at the time) to buy eight votes.

Ultimately, Beleri beat the Socialist candidate Jorgo Goro by 19 votes. He could not be sworn in while under arrest.

His supporters insist he is a victim of a political trap set by Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialists. It’s a notion that Rama himself has dismissed as “delusional.”

Beleri protests his innocence. “With a fake criminal record, no evidence, no other witnesses, except one who was bribed by the police, with an ‘appointed’ judge, in a glass cage without communication with my lawyer, the Albanian court sentenced me today to two years in prison,” he said in a statement.

Athens has been pressing Tirana for his release and for him to be sworn in even if this happens in jail, but so far to no avail.

Albania’s suspicions about Beleri run deep, often asserting he was involved with an irredentist militant terror network. In 1995 — the year after an attack that killed two Albanian soldiers — he was arrested and sentenced in Greece to three years on probation for complicity over the possession of weapons.

His alleged involvement with these activities has been repeatedly investigated by the Albanian judiciary — in 1994, 2005 and 2015 — but without evidence against him being found. Beleri provided evidence, including his stamped passport, that he was in Cyprus when the 1994 attack took place.

In the meantime, Goro, the mayor of Himarë, was also arrested in April on corruption charges. He had been accused by Beleri of producing fake documents to obtain government land and create a resort. Blerina Bala from the Socialist group has been appointed acting mayor.

Rifts with EU allies

Greece argues Beleri’s case should be viewed as a European concern rather than a bilateral matter, as it represents a rule of law concern in a country aspiring to join the EU. Athens also insists Albania’s EU accession path must respect the Greek minority.

The issue strained Greece’s relations with some of its EU allies, particularly Berlin, when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz publicly spoke in favor of Albania’s EU candidacy despite Athens’ objections.

In November, Greece warned a meeting of the Council of Permanent Representatives of the EU that it stood ready to block Albania if it did not respect Beleri’s rights.

“For the moment, the Americans and Europeans are not convinced that the Beleri case is a matter of democracy, the rule of law and human rights violations,” Aggelos Syrigos, assistant professor of international law at Panteion University and a New Democracy MP, wrote in an opinion piece.

Nikos Androulakis, leader of the Socialist PASOK party, said New Democracy’s strategy hardly helped the Greek community in Himarë.

“The Greek minority needs Beleri as mayor of Himarë. This should have been the priority of the government, but Mitsotakis’ agonizing to stop the loss of votes to right-wing parties led him to handle things this way,” he said.

Marilena Koppa, professor of comparative politics at Panteion University, said Greece’s action was “populist, opportunistic and short-sighted.”