page_title: Greater Albania
section_title: 2000s–present
hierarchical_section_title: Greater Albania / History / 2000s–present
caption_attribution_description: Distribution of Albanians outside Albania.
context_page_description: Greater Albania is an irredentist concept that seeks to unify the lands that many Albanians consider to form their national homeland, based on claims on the present-day or historical presence of Albanian populations in those areas. In addition to the existing Albania, the term incorporates claims to regions in the neighbouring states, the areas include Kosovo, the Preševo Valley of Serbia, territories in southern Montenegro, northwestern Greece, and a western part of North Macedonia.
  The unification of an even larger area into a single territory under Albanian authority had been theoretically conceived by the League of Prizren, an organization of the 19th century whose goal was to unify the Albanian inhabited lands into a single autonomous Albanian Vilayet within the Ottoman Empire. However, the concept of a Greater Albania, as in greater than Albania within its 1913 borders, was implemented only under the Italian and Nazi German occupation of the Balkans during World War II.
context_section_description: Political parties advocating and willing to fight for a Greater Albania emerged in Albania during the 2000s. They were the National Liberation Front of Albanians (KKCMTSH) and Party of National Unity (PUK) that both merged in 2002 to form the United National Albanian Front (FBKSh) which acted as the political organisation for the Albanian National Army (AKSh) militant group and consisted of some disaffected KLA and NLA members. Regarded internationally as terrorist both have gone underground and its members have been involved in various violent incidents in Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia during the 2000s. In the early 2000s, the Liberation Army of Chameria (UCC) was a reported paramilitary formation that intended to be active in northern Greek region of Epirus. Political parties active only in the political scene exist that have a nationalist outlook are the monarchist Legality Movement Party (PLL), the National Unity Party (PBKSh) alongside the Balli Kombëtar, a party to have passed the electoral threshold and enter parliament. These political parties, some of whom advocate for a Greater Albania have been mainly insignificant and remained at the margins of the Albanian political scene. The Kosovo question has limited appeal among Albanian voters who generally speaking are not interested in electing parties advocating redrawn borders creating a Greater Albania. Centenary Albanian independence celebrations in 2012 generated nationalistic commentary among the political elite of whom prime-minister Sali Berisha referred to Albanian lands as extending to Preveza, northern Greece and Preševo, southern Serbia angering Albania's neighbors. In Kosovo, a prominent left wing nationalist movement turned political party Vetëvendosje (Self Determination) has emerged who advocates for closer Kosovo-Albania relations and pan-Albanian self determination in the Balkans. Another smaller nationalist party, the Balli Kombetar Kosovë (BKK) sees itself as an heir to the original Second World War organisation that supports Kosovan independence and pan-Albanian unification. Greater Albania remains mainly in the sphere of political rhetoric and overall Balkan Albanians view EU integration as the solution to combat crime, weak governance, civil society and bringing different Albanian populations together.
  On 19 July 2020, singer of Albanian descend Dua Lipa faced backlash after she shared an image of a banner associated with supporters of extreme Albanian nationalism. The same banner had sparked controversy at the 2014 Serbia vs. Albania football game. The banner depicts the irredentist map of Greater Albania, while the caption, "autochthonous", alludes to the Illyrian theory of the origin of the Albanians. In response, Twitter users, many of them Macedonian, Greek, Montenegrin and Serbian, accused the singer of ethno-nationalism. Political scientist Florian Bieber described Lipa's tweet as "stupid nationalism", an idea which claims that one group has greater rights because it was there earlier and that migrants to the nation should be deemed less worthy.
caption: Distribution of Albanians in the Balkans.
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