[InTime News]
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama is planning to hold a rally for Albanian immigrants living in Greece on November 3 at the Porto Palace Hotel in the northern port city of Thessaloniki.
This will be the second big gathering Rama has held in Greece this year, following a similar event in Athens in May. Both are part of an effort to engage the diaspora ahead of Albania’s parliamentary elections in 2025.
Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis had dismissed Rama’s Athens rally as “superfluous,” pointing to ongoing tensions between Greece and Albania, particularly over the imprisonment of Fredi Beleri, the ethnic Greek politician who had been elected mayor of Himare and is now an MEP for Greece.
Despite this tension and concerns about the rule of law in the Balkan country, Greece recently voted in favor of starting Albania’s accession negotiations with the European Union.
In the meantime, Rama has come under fire from the opposition at home, which accuses him of using SPAK, a special prosecution office set up to fight corruption and organized crime, to target his political rivals, particularly following the recent arrest of opposition leader Ilir Meta.