The unification of Albania and Kosovo is a political idea, revived after Kosovo declared independence in 2008. This idea has been connected to the irredentist concept of Greater Albania. As of the 2021 census, approximately 97% of Kosovars are ethnic Albanians.
{ | class="wikitable" ! Subdivision ! Area km2 ! Population ! Gross domestic product |- | || 28,748 || 2,793,592 || €17.940 billion |- | | || 10,887 || 1,761,985 || €8.955 billion |- | Greater Albania || 39,635 || 4,555,577 || €26.895 billion |- |}
History
The prospect of Kosovo unifying with Albania dates back to the Bujan Conference held between a number of delegates of communist parties which were heading Albanian and Yugoslav national liberation movements in World War II. On the model of self-determination, Yugoslavia was to cede Kosovo to Albania after the war ended according to a resolution adopted at the conference, but this resolution failed to materialize. PR Albania and FPR Yugoslavia came to have close relations in the immediate post-World War II period, which saw Yugoslavia attempt expanding its sphere of influence over Albania with the offer of ceding Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija to Albania in exchange for Albanian integration into a future Balkan Federation. These plans were cut short by a solid turn to sharp antagonism between the two countries after the Tito–Stalin split in 1948.
During the 1981 protests in Kosovo, Yugoslavia feared a potential unification of Kosovo with Albania. In the early 1990s, Albanian politicians' statements were often contradictory on the possibility. Political activist Ukshin Hoti, founder of the Party of Albanian National Union, who disappeared while in Serbian police custody in 1999, was an ardent supporter of the unification of Kosovo with Albania. In 2001, Arben Imami, a politician from the Democratic Party of Albania, stated that unification of Kosovo with Albania should be a party goal, but this statement was met with criticism within his own party.
The Ahtisaari Plan conditioned Kosovo's independence by adopting a multiethnic “Kosovar,” rather than an Albanian identity. Still, Gallup surveys from 2007 revealed that 73% of Kosovo Albanians believed that in an ideal world Albanians would live united in one country. The same support was seen in Albania where 68% of the citizens of Albania agreed with this statement. However, support for unification declined after Kosovo declared independence - support for unification in Kosovo declined to 54% in 2008, and a later poll by the Albanian Institute for International Studies from 2010 showed that 37% of surveyed Albanians considered unification of Albania with Kosovo as neither positive or negative, while 35% saw it as negative and only 9% considered it a positive development. In 2017, some mainstream Albanian politicians, such as Ben Blushi, have come out in support of unification. In Kosovo, the political party Vetëvendosje supports unification. A political union between the two states may bring Albania into diplomatic conflict with Serbia, which regards Kosovo as its de jure territory.
In May 2019, president Hashim Thaçi suggested a referendum on the unification of Kosovo and Albania, if the slow integration process by the European Union does not accelerate. However, some simply view this as an attempt by Thaçi to “keep himself in the spotlight”, without any real intention of uniting the two countries. In 2011, Albanian Foreign Minister Edmond Haxhinasto called the prospect of national unification of Albania and Kosovo "damaging" and stated that "Albanian integration will be achieved through integration in the European Union, when our entire region and all states where Albanians live are members of the EU"; Kosovo political leaders agreed with Haxhinasto's opinion.
Public opinion
Before Kosovo's declaration of independence in 2008, support for the unification of Albania and Kosovo was low. According to a 2005 poll, only 10% of Kosovars at the time supported a union of Albania and Kosovo. In 2007, The Economist'' concluded that "younger Albanians in Kosovo have developed a Kosovar identity of their own", and that in Albanian politics, a possible unification with Kosovo was not seen as a relevant issue and a possible accession to the EU was a far more important concern for Albanians. A lack of economic integration between Kosovo and Albania was also noted - Albania did not rank among Kosovo's top 10 importers. Following the Kosovo's declaration of independence, a 2010 Balkan Insight poll showed that only 29.2% of Kosovar Albanians surveyed supported a limited realisation of Greater Albania in the form of a union between Albania and Kosovo.