ABSTRACT
Party chief Ramiz Alia's statement on foreign policy at the Ninth Congress of the Albanian Workers' Party in November 1986 was in the best tradition of his maker and mentor, the late Enver Hoxha. Alia began with a positive assessment of Greek-Albanian relations. Greece retained first place among those countries with which Albania was developing friendly relations. The improvement of relations between Rome and Tirana had come to an abrupt halt when a group of Albanians sought refuge in the Italian Embassy in Tirana in December 1985. The Albanian diaspora remained particularly strong in Turkey; moreover, many ethnic Albanians returned from Yugoslavia in the nineteen-fifties. In 1987, the growth rate of the Albanian population was among the highest in Europe. The aim of economic measures introduced in 1987 was to boost the stagnant economy by increasing material incentives. They sought to ease the country's highly centralized economic management and improve economic expertise.
