“In the minds of most of us and in the minds of the Greek prime minister, Albania violates our notions of the rule of law and the way justice is administered” emphasized tonight the Minister of State Makis Voridis speaking at the 1st International Affairs Forum Conference, organized by the DAP-NDFK of the Departments of International European Studies and Balkan Studies of PAMAK as well as the School of Law and the School of Political Sciences of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

The minister, speaking in the section on European integration and the rule of law, referred in particular to the Beleris case for which he commented that the mayor Heimarras was arrested for a misdemeanor, with a clean criminal record, is being held in prison for five months while a trial begins without having released and with many procedural issues. Regarding the arguments of the Albanian side, he noted that “the defense of Albania is the independent Albanian judiciary”, he raised the question of whether the independence of the judiciary makes its decisions uncontrollable in terms of substance and added: “here a debate opens because we do not find the defense of the Albanian authorities and the Albanian administration convincing».

“Would we have a mayor imprisoned for a misdemeanor? Would we not let a mayor swear because he is charged with a misdemeanor and have him temporarily detained at risk of flight? These are actually checkedhe commented.

At the same time, he underlined that there are dilemmas in the issue of European integration and enlargement, when it comes to countries whose institutions are not equivalent to European ones. That is why he asked the question:when we have such states what do we do with them? do we let them go or stop them?».

On the occasion of his experience from his participation in the parliamentary assembly of the Organization for Security and Stability in Europe he pointed out: “I was in favor of a soft approach. I thought that if we are completely apolitical, these countries will be completely cut off and eventually the West will have no influence on the development of their institutions and their democracies. Well, I just wanted to be in a negotiation.”,

Afterwards, he emphasized that “many countries still have totalitarian regimes and many peoples and many people suffer from this situation”, while on the issues arising in the issue of immigration he noted: “weighing interests between complex issues is what makes Western democracies so advanced and indeed when this weighing has to be done by a complex of different institutions that each have different goals».

The minister referred to a number of issues such as legislative processes, justice, constitutional review and the protection of human rights.

In view of the constitutional review, he expressed his personal opinion that “we have to put some kind of fiscal clause in the Constitution“, while closing his intervention he underlined: “the modern democracies and the Greek one are highly developed polities with very complex internal balances, with checks and balances which pose many complex issues at a time, they are complex polities in their management and on the other hand the truth is that from this complexity I think that the fact that they are the best cultures in the world comes out by far. We have built and created through this complexity civilizations that can ensure the greatest possible happiness for the greatest possible number of people.».