Ilir Meta (born 24 March 1969) was Prime Minister of Albania from 29 October 1999 to 29 January 2002 (interrupting Pandeli Majko's terms) and President of Albania from 24 July 2017 to 24 July 2022 (succeeding Bujar Nishani and preceding Bajram Begaj).
Biography[]
Ilir Meta was born in Cepan, Albania in 1969, and he was active in the pro-democracy student movement of 1990 before being first elected to Parliament in 1992 as a member of the Socialist Party of Albania. He served in various vice-ministerial positions before serving as Prime Minister from 1999 to 2002, making the 30-year-old Meta the youngest prime minister since the 27-year-old Ahmet Zogu in 1922. Meta the Socialist Party in 2004 to found the Socialist Movement for Integration (LSI), a social democratic splintergroup of the PS, following infighting with the Socialist leader Fatos Nano. In 2010, Meta successfully pushed for visa-free travel for Albanians within the European Union's Schengen Area, and he supported European integration for all of the countries of the Western Balkans to strengthen stability and peace in the region. In 2017, Meta was elected President of Albania, and he once again focused his efforts on European integration. In June 2021, Meta was initially impeached by his Socialist rivals before the Constitutional Court overturned his impeachment in February 2022, allowing him to serve out the remainder of his term and leave office in July 2022. A day after leaving office, he presided over the LSI's transition into a right-wing populist party as the "Freedom Party of Albania", which accused President Edi Rama and other political elites of working with organized crime to deprive Kosovo of its independence and Albania of its democracy.