Informality and the challenge of the law are what have been holding our country hostage for many years, but especially after the '90s. Completely different from other sister countries of the communist system, we deviated on a path from which today we are bitterly contemplating all the weaknesses, but more than that the way we know how to make our state. Among them, the plague of informality is the most painful and malignant of the entire post-socialist period.
It never scabs over and we simply have to lick it, like those wounded animals to calm it down, because there is nothing more we can do to close it. So in the multitude of news related to its ownership and misuse, the news that goes unnoticed are those related to cadastre and properties because everyone knows that there is a jungle there, where you can get lost even with the most sophisticated GPS.
Today, what is related to property is considered not only one of the biggest legal problems, from which many of them stem, but also the most confusing because of the way in which the movement of many people was encouraged without any plan; how the occupation of lands and the taking of buildings were carried out throughout the 20th century and after. In fact, neither the governments before nor after the Zog Monarchy could face the den of bureaucratic fraud of that time and the abuse of property laws and titles inherited with or without right since the Ottoman Empire.
The communists after World War II took the mess even further with the confiscation of all land, houses and even private businesses, nationalized by the state (a few years later). With the same haste, at the turn of the '90s, the Law of that time stated that: "the owners must take their property", but while the properties were being identified, the "fast" (Read: tricksters) and the "strong"
(Read: the extortionists) began the chaos. The configuration of those times would have been strange: few original owners (many died looking for it); others who benefited from the state and those who took it in various forms, demanding an account at the doors of the courts from each other. The rush of the hasty newcomers invaded the "free" land, where houses were built everywhere without permission (a areal view helps you understand when you fly to come or leave Albania) and the laziness of the Property Restitution Commissions with their bad maneuvers, added to the cynicism of local officials who quickly issued property documents to gain support, increased the concern to the point of absurdity.
Now, the owners of real papers that existed before the Second World War and the “legal” ones, already equipped with state documents of the “democratic” authorities, were claiming the same property. And not only that for a long time, Albania was unable to make a complete digital register of properties, but also due to the fact that in many places you could not make measurements or you could not approach the strong occupiers, there were cases where the land or buildings were sold to several different people. Thousands of dead people who have long since crossed the unfortunate list of the dead from communism are witnesses to the payment, while the consequences of this wretchedness now fill the EU reports and the promises of reform from Rama & Co.
The wound is aggravated by court cases for property settlement that usually last up to 10-15 years, where many who were waiting for the verdicts have died, without seeing the possibility of returning to their property, and others are facing the same fate with the predisposition they see in our courts, the cause of suffering. Meanwhile, the "strong" and especially those associated with the two main parties (the tandem of the Socialist Party and the Democratic Party) have not only benefited from the illegality, but in many ways block the solutions.
This has made foreign investments very cautious (read: limited), while foreign companies and Albanians abroad are very skeptical about construction because the property title is not clear. And, thinking about the mess in the coastal areas and especially what has happened with the cadastres in Saranda, Vlora, Durrës for tourist land, is truly horrifying. Some of the immigrants have often expressed on the "Flamingove" platform that they have to fight for the land that their grandparents owned, while Albanians are told that they have to work hard to regulate property titles for the Law, the State and Integration.
This whole process is the cause of the great informality that indirectly feeds informal behavior. Owners who pay with two tables, businesses that exercise their work but are limited due to titles, etc. To a large extent, our economy still remains very informal, as many work without contracts and without taxes, while there are many informal properties/constructions, where houses, businesses, entire environments built without property titles or legal permits stand out. In our country, the informal economy is estimated to occupy about 30-32% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), while in the labor market, about 33% of employees are affected by informality (mainly with under-declaration of salary) and 1 in 5 employees turns out to work without pay, referred to "Monitor".
The paradox was that Albania after the '90s had dusty offices to complete the structures that the EU wanted, but not GPS and the surveyors of the past. Corruption was very easy, as the cadastres were comfortable for the heartless militants of the parties. A little more than 2015 ago, with funds from the EU, the World Bank and IPA, Albania began digitalization and aerial mapping, although governments slowed down or accelerated compensation to give a hand to their voters. Meanwhile, the mountain of stocks in the Courts has reached over 150.000 property cases from which today it is justified that even if the cadastre "gives you ownership", the court will return it and say: "Wait x years".
This is one of the biggest concerns but it is lost in what this chaos has brought, where the Albanian individual is both the perpetrator and the beneficiary, but also the harmed as well as the killed. We simply copied the West with laws, but today, we struggle with chaos, lack of trust, corruption and lack of professionalism, while in the West the perception is that institutions are not just a concept for they must be of value to the state.
In a lengthy description in his book “The Mystery of Capital”, De Soto shows that unlike Third World and former communist countries, in the West property rights evolved over 200-300 years, while we did them in a hurry in a few years to join the EU/NATO. Metaphorically we have an empty building, as they like in Brussels, but not the work culture and professionals inside it, according to him. And, where problems are solved with bribes and friends, but not rules.
This is where the connections of criminals with politics often come up and then the control of the media, parties and courts. What is meant by this is that Brussels is interested in institutions as a form and much less content, that is, good for reports. So, today, we have institutions, but a population that does not trust them and especially an elite that learned to use them, because trust cannot be legislated overnight or even in a few years. This is the pain of the people who articulate from the pulpits to the "Flamingos", but which cannot be cured because it will take generations for the Albanian to pass that stage that no one has passed before us. Rama was not able to cross this mountain, despite the EU integration on paper; and Berisha missed it as a moment, after he codified the crap. No one can cure the informality and the lack of law in the country. Therefore, this definition of Aristotle sounds bitter but appropriate: "In his best form, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice, he is the worst." (Homo Albanicus)
