It’s one thing for Greece to be bullied by a heavyweight like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – he got Joe Biden and NATO to cave – but Greece can’t allow a lightweight like Albania’s strongman Edi Rama to kick sand in its face.

The 6-7 former basketball player turned politician thinks he can take Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis into the low post and score over him at will, the way he’s been acting, ignoring Greece blocking Albania’s path to the European Union over the jailing of an ethnic Greek, Fredi Beleri, the legally-elected Mayor of Himare.
That’s a seaside town ripe for development and tourism, Albania being so cheap that foreign travelers have begun to discover it, hoping the electricity will work all day, and one of the few spots in the country where you can swim without needing a vaccine later

If you’ve ever been to Durres, the country’s second-biggest and ancient city, a stroll along the promenade will let you see the pollution rolling in and it should be called Fecal Beach given how dirty it is.

But not as much as Rama’s government. His campaigns were roiled by allegations of corruption and bribery, even more of a national sport in Albania than Greece, and Albanian criminals have displaced Russian gangsters as villains of choice in movies and TV.

It’s a wonder how Greece has the worst media freedom record in the European Union given that Rama’s government regulated the online media market, forcing outlets to register and allowing them and journalists to be fined or content blocked.

Don’t know how many points Rama scored playing for Albania’s national basketball team  but score one for him for censorship. His anti-defamation law lets a state agency go after journalists who can’t be heard in court until after paying a fine. Talk about chilling.

After Albania fell to an historic low in Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) annual World Press Freedom Index he accused the group of making up “lies” and called the accusations “fantasies,” the preferred tactic for those methinks doth protest too much.

He tweeted: “Journalists victims of police violence in Albania? What a lie! Journalists critical of the government face political attacks? What a fantasy! Ethical self-regulation in the Albanian media? What a mockery! Only the title is missing: We complain about the lack of freedom because we do not know what to do with freedom!”

The next day, RSF said he attacked a reporter whom he had previously put on a two-month long embargo. Greece prefers bugging their phones –  while denying Predator spyware was used – or suing reporters to keep them from doing their jobs.

In 2023, he denied that he had bribed or given preferential treatment to a former high-ranking FBI counterintelligence official who has been indicted in the United States, telling Parliament the opposition wanted “to politically exploit a legal process in the USA that has no links at all to Albania, the government or me personally.”

At least he can say he’s not Sali Berisha, the former premier charged with corruption and sanctioned by the United States, which barred him and his family for life, so there goes that Statue of Liberty visit.

In December 2021, onboard a Lufthansa plane headed to Detroit from Frankfurt, Rama refused to wear a face mask required by COVID-19 measures as the pandemic was raging, even rejecting the Captain until Federal police took him off the plane.

All this speaks of a little man who thinks he’s a big man because of his height and position in a country that wants to get into the European Union, its path blocked by a reputation for corruption and meddling in the judiciary, and now the Beleri case.

Mitsotakis has stymied Albania’s hopes and could kill it with a veto, but Rama has shown he doesn’t think the Greek leader has the stomach to get tough with him.

The Greek newspaper Kathimerini said Rama believes EU and American pressure will be put on Greece to relent because of his country’s anti-Russian stance and wanting to create a Balkan bulwark against Russian President Vladimir ‘Snake Eyes’ Putin.

The paper said some officials in Greece’s New Democracy government are advising sanctions be put on Albania but that Rama sees Western support as a guarantee against any real penalties, allowing the jailing of Beleri.

The Mayor, who wasn’t allowed to take office, said he was arrested on spurious charges and that corruption was behind a ruse to keep him from office and benefit friends of Rama who want to develop Himare.

Beleri told the court the trial was biased and that it “could have taken place once upon a time but not in a European state in the year 2024, where it is not officially in a dictatorship,” although Rama has an authoritarian rule.

Beleri’s lawyer Geni Gjyzari asserted that the verdict was “political as the Prime Minister had ordered it,” adding that he would appeal. Good luck with that because Albania’s court system should have a Kangaroo on its flag.

“The way Albania has handled this issue has negatively affected relations with Greece and it is not something we want,” Mitsotakis said. Now he has to prove it and not let the EU and U.S. push him around like Rama thinks he can.

Game Over.