On June 19th, 2023, former Prime Minister Sali Berisha, along with a group of Democratic Party MPs, presented a proposal to adopt a law that would determine the necessary minimum subsistence level for the citizens of Albania. Berisha’s spokesperson referred to this as the “first initiative in 30 years” on this matter. However, Faktoje’s verification showed that a similar proposal was submitted to the Albanian Parliament back in March, accompanied by 21,000 citizen signatures collected by the “Together Movement”.
Jona Plumbi
The leader of the Democratic Party’s Refounding Commission’s group of MPs, Sali Berisha, announced the proposal for a social law on the minimum subsistence level in the Albanian Parliament. The presentation of the proposal by the group of MPs he represents was made through a press conference.
According to Sali Berisha’s spokesperson, Floriana Garo, this is the first proposal of its kind.
“This draft law was submitted by the Parliamentary group two weeks ago, on June 7th, 2023. It is the first time in 30 years that an initiative has been taken to establish a minimum subsistence level for Albanian citizens.” – Floriana Garo, Spokesperson for the leader of the Refounding Commission, Sali Berisha.
Based on this statement, Faktoje decided to verify whether this is indeed the first proposal to be presented in the Albanian Parliament for the adoption of a law determining the minimum subsistence level in the country. The search revealed that in October 2022, the “Political Organization ” (activist movement registered as the “Together Movement” party before the 2023 local elections) launched a campaign to collect citizen signatures for the proposal of a law on the minimum subsistence level.
On December 12th, 2022, the Political Organization submitted the collected signatures during the announced campaign to the Central Election Commission, the institution responsible for verifying the data gathered for the proposed law.
“21 thousand signatures have been collected in a record time, within 2 months, thanks to hundreds of citizens both inside and outside Albania. The entire effort shows the urgency, need, and emergency our country has in determining the minimum subsistence level.” – said Viki Çipi, Together Movement at the time.
On January 9th, 2023, the Central Election Commission approved the registration of the legislative initiative of the voters “For determining the minimum subsistence level”.
“The State Election Commissioner considers that the submitted signatures by the representatives of the legislative initiative to propose the draft law ‘For determining the minimum subsistence level’ have been submitted in accordance with the requirements of the law and as such must be accepted.” – stated in the decision.
On March 30th, 2023, Together Movement announced the submission of this proposal to the Albanian Parliament.
“Today, TOGETHER Movement submitted to the Albanian Parliament the draft law for the approval of the Minimum Subsistence Level.”
The Albanian Parliament has recorded this proposal since the date of submission, March 30th, 2023.
As long as the proposal initiated by the Democratic Party’s Refounding Commission was sent to the Parliament on June 7th, as stated by the spokesperson of this group, it is clear that Sali Berisha’s proposed initiative for determining the minimum subsistence level is not the first in 30 years.
Based on this information, we categorize the statement of the spokesperson for the group of “Berisha” MPs as untrue.
