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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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In almost every traveler's and consular sheet guides Albania is looked at as the least developed country in Europe. This may be true but this is only a part of the story. The numbers taken from the official statistics can put this country among not very pleasant company of poor nations in Latin America or middle-income states in Africa. Unlike most of these companions, the situation in Albania is a result of its own population intended actions. The situation in the education in this respect is indicative and maybe used as a good example of what has happened.

During the communism, a brutal era that ended in 1990-1991, the state has tried to bring literacy to the masses. The educational standards weren't high by the European criteria, but the majority of the population learned reading and writing for the first time in this nation's history. The communist government as a good communist follower needed literate people to run the industry that was in its rudimentary stages. Making people literate together with the neck-breaking industrialization was done in such a way that at the end it produced a strong social resistance. When the communism went down, people turned against the material symbols of the old era, destroying within weeks and months about one third of the schools and many industrial factories.

Schoolteachers fled the countryside. The country that had achieved an almost complete basic literacy suddenly ran out of teachers and schools. The situation in the education occurred with equal strength in other social domains. The law and order collapsed and for some time the society outside the capital city was near the state of anarchy. The industry was decimated by groups of local looters. The state bureaucracy gave way to social relations based on the kinship.

The result was that the country was associated with countries it had little in common besides its low purchasing power. Unlike most of these countries Albania was a country that went back in its modernization. Unlike most of them it had a population that had experienced some modernization. Unlike most of them for a brief period it also had been proclaimed to be a completely atheist society. That meant that the present anarchic situation couldn't be perceived for a long by the population as natural. Being situated in Europe meant that Albanians will always have as a reference point the other more developed European countries, not the poor nations in Latin America.

For the Albanians the lack of social satisfaction is necessary but not a sufficient condition in order to get their country again on the modernization track. Many of them have decided to leave the country and the only thing they may do for its development is to send money orders to their relatives. It doesn't sound too optimistic, but there are gradual improvements since the lawlessness of 1997 when the illegal financial schemes went down. To be more precise, the situation now looks better than 8 years ago, but the country is still on the very bottom of the European economic scale.

Recently the power in Tirana has changed the guards and the old leader Sali Berisha that was toppled in 1997 would again lead the country, this time as a prime minister. For Europe this is a bad choice, but they will have to live with it for the next years. Berisha is officially largely held accountable for the anarchy in the early and mid-1990s and his party has a rather bad record of economic management. Thus the most recent parliament election makes the country even less eligible for admission in the European Union, everything else being equal. An additional problem is that everything else isn't equal because the EU, with exception of Romania and Bulgaria, and probably of Croatia, has put brakes on the future enlargement plans.

It's hard to predict what course the Albanian society will take under the new political leadership. Two things are certain. First, no matter what this country achieves, it won't be considered enough in Brussels even to open real talks for full membership. Second, no matter what the international incentives are, the Albanians won't accept their inferior position as perpetual. This sense of dissatisfaction will push them to actions. These actions if carefully planned may push the country ahead; if not it may again experience anarchy.

Albania profile:

• Area: 28,748 sq km
• Population: 3.5 million (July 2005 est.)
• Literacy (age 9 and over can read and write): 86.5%
• Life expectancy at birth: 77.24 years
• Ethnic groups: Albanian 95%, Greek 3%, other 2%
• GDP per capita: purchasing power parity $4,900 (2004 est.)
• Population below poverty line: 25% (2004 est.)
• Main trading partners: Italy, Greece, Germany, and Turkey.
• Telephones: main lines - 255,000 (2003), mobile cellular - 1.1 million (2003)
• Internet users: 30,000 (2003)

(Source: CIA - The World Factbook 2005)

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