Albania's economy and trade minister resigned Friday after the broadcast of a videotape earlier this week showing him discussing the manipulation of government contracts, DPA reported.
"I want to face justice, not as the deputy prime minister, or as a minister, but as an ordinary citizen," Ilir Meta said at a news capital in the Albanian capital Tirana.
The compromising video was broadcast Tuesday on an investigative news program. It showed Meta conferring with former economy minister Dritan Prifti about the manipulation of one tender and the cancellation of another.
Meta was appointed economy minister last September, when Prifti resigned from the post because of corruption allegations.
Meta had said Wednesday that he would fight the allegations and that he would renounce his parliamentary immunity. He said Friday that he could get fair treatment only if he resigned.
"This is my personal choice and it is irrevocable. I can not present myself as deputy prime minister or minister at the prosecution," he said.
The video was made in early 2010, when Meta was deputy prime minister and foreign minister.
Stamping out corruption is one of the key requirements for Albania to progress towards European Union accession.
"We're talking here of allegations, so for the moment and to our knowledge these allegations have not been confirmed," a spokeswoman for the European Commission, the EU's executive, said in Brussels.
However, Natasha Butler stressed that the Albanian government has no direct control over the spending of tens of millions of EU pre-accession funds (IPA) that are channelled to Albania every year.
"IPA project implementation is fully done by the EU delegation in Tirana ... in other words, the Albanian administration is not exactly directly recipient of IPA funds," she said.
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