Albania–Netherlands relations

Albania – Netherlands relations

Albania	Netherlands
Diplomatic Mission
Albanian Embassy, The Hague	Dutch Embassy, Tirana

Albania – Netherlands relations are the bilateral relations between Albania and the Netherlands.

Embassies and consulates

Albania maintains an embassy in the Hague. The Netherlands maintains an embassy in Tirana.

History

Captain Hendrik Reimers captured by the peasant rebels

Prince Wilhelm of Wied, Isa Boletini and officers of the International Gendarmerie: Duncan Heaton-Armstrong and Colonel Thomson near Durres in June 1914

Albania declared independence from the Ottoman Empire in November 1912, during the First Balkan War. The leading European powers of the time recognised Albania's independence at the 1913 London Peace Conference, where it was decided that the Dutch would take responsibility for internal security. This led to the Netherlands deploying military personnel to help set up the gendarmerie of the Provisional Government of Albania.

In 1946, the Netherlands called upon the United Nations Security Council to bring to a halt incidents along the northern border of Greece, involving the Socialist People's Republic of Albania, Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria.

The Socialist People's Republic of Albania started their diplomatic relations with the Netherlands, and eight other Western European countries, in 1970.

In the early 1990s the socialist regime collapsed, and while Albania turned to democracy they had no previous experience of implementing it. This led to several years of social and political instability. The Netherlands was able to assist Albania by starting a skills building program in 1999. Groups of Albanian politicians and officials, from both national and local level, would attend the Hague for workshops with their Dutch peers where they discussed the practice of good governance and administration within the democratic framework.