The Albanian-Greek Relations Following the Sea Border Issue

Abstract

The paper seeks to explore the Albanian-Greek relations following the sea border dispute analyzing Albanian political elite’s discourse. Throughout the history various and complex issues have determined the relations between Greece and Albania, which sometimes have caused tension and disputes between them. The two countries have been on a dispute on the sea border issue because the Albanian Constitutional Court nullified the 2009 mutual agreement signed by previous Albanian and Greek governments due to territorial integrity violations. More than five years later the two countries have not settled the maritime borders yet. This study concentrates on depicting the relations between two countries after this episode happened. It question: how this issue affected the relations among two countries? The main claim of this article is that a new issue of concern is detected in the bilateral relations, such as exclusive economic zones issue. The exploration of economic exploitation zones in the Ionian Sea urges for the delimitation of maritime borders between two countries, and therefore the renegotiation of “sea agreement” is inevitable in near future. Methodology used to conduct the analysis is discourse analysis.