The candidacy of the new American ambassador to Albania, David Kostelancik, "stuck" in the senate

2024-09-28 08:28:00, Aktualitet CNA

The candidacy of the new American ambassador to Albania, David Kostelancik,

The nomination of President Biden David Kostelancik for ambassador to Albania must wait for an indefinite time to receive approval from the US Senate.

In the US Senate, on September 24, 2024, Jeanne Shaheen, Senator from Hampshire, introduced a supporting motion to approve this nomination without delay.

"For more than 35 years, Mr. David J. Kostelancik has served as a career foreign service diplomat and is a highly qualified candidate to represent the US in an allied country like Albania. He has previously served in Albania and other countries. It is more than clear that we have a highly qualified candidate to serve as ambassador to Albania.

I want to show why it is critical to confirm an ambassador to Albania without delay. Albania is a success story for American foreign policy.

In 2016, Albania accepted our request to receive Iranian dissidents. In 2021, he did not think twice when he agreed to host Afghans. What message do we send to Albania, a staunch ally of the USA, with the fact that we still cannot confirm the ambassador after a year? Albania is the only NATO member country in which we have not nominated the ambassador yet.

I can tell you that today China and Russia have their ambassadors in Albania and now it is the duty of the senate to decide. I invite you for consensus in approving this candidacy without interference and without debate for US ambassador to Albania. Kostelancik speaks Albanian and is qualified for this position, therefore I propose that there should be no more delays in his nomination", said Jeanne Shaheen, senator from Hampshire.
But Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah opposes Kostelancik's candidacy

"Like many of Biden's nominations, Mr. David J. Kostelancik has proven that he cannot fulfill the duties of protecting US interests. His performance in Hungary as an envoy should disqualify him from having a diplomatic mandate. He became involved in Hungarian domestic politics. Attacked media freedom and engaged in social activism. It damaged relations with an important ally of ours. The Biden administration had every opportunity to bring us another name as a nominee when Kostelancik's candidacy was returned by the senate last year," said Utah Sen. Mike Lee.
Jeanne Shaheen Senator from Hampshire stressed that the delays in appointing ambassadors are worrying and have consequences for national security. Due to the lack of quorum, her motion was not put to the vote, creating another delay for DASH in bringing an ambassador to Albania.

The White House reappointed David Kostelancik this year, 2024, as ambassador to Albania, thus restarting the process for considering the candidacy, since at the end of last year's legislative calendar, along with dozens of other appointments, she was not included in the order of the day of the Senate for voting. The nominations were blocked by some Republican senators, a common practice in Washington political battles.

The candidacy passed on April 16 in the Foreign Relations Committee of the US Senate but has stalled in the Senate.

Mr. Kostelancik is a career diplomat of the United States Foreign Service and has served in Albania even earlier, in the period 1992-1994, as the first representative for political and economic affairs in the newly opened embassy in Tirana. Prior to his appointment as ambassador to Albania, he served as foreign policy advisor to the US Army Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley. During his 30-year diplomatic career, Mr. Kostelancik served, among other things, as director of the office for Southern and Central Europe at the State Department. He has served twice in the American embassy in Moscow, in the American missions in OSCE and NATO, as well as in Ankara, Turkey. Originally from the state of Illinois, Mr. Kostelancik graduated from the Northwestern University of this state and speaks Russian, Hungarian, Albanian and Turkish.