The question of emigration is a highly politicised and contested one.

Albania’s opposition says that more than half a million people have left the country in the past decade or so alone. And indeed, if you add up the number of emigrants estimated by INSTAT over the 12 years up to 2018, you get more than that.

However, INSTAT also records estimates of people coming back to the country, which come to more than 260,000 over the same period.

It is also important to factor in that the same person can be counted several times if they come and go, which many do. Clearly, the trend is one of net emigration but determining exact figures is almost impossible.

Circular migration, that is to say people going abroad for work for short periods, is something “we cannot measure”, said Nesturi.

One problem with trying to determine levels of Albanian emigration is that significant numbers try their luck by applying for political asylum and these numbers are not included on INSTAT emigration data unless a person regularises their status.

Almost no Albanians qualify for political asylum abroad but for many, especially from poor areas, it was and is worth applying and then spending several months in a rich EU country, housed by them, with access to social security and so on, rather than being unemployed or poorly paid at home.

Before Albanians had access to visa-free travel to the Schengen zone beginning in December 2010, the numbers trying this were small — 1,965 in all EU countries in 2010.

However, afterwards the numbers began to climb until they peaked at 68,950 in 2015, the largest number being in Germany.

In 2018, the number of Albanians applying for asylum in the EU had dropped to 22,475 but 9,665 of them, the largest single number, were in France where the system for processing people and deporting failed asylum seekers is slow, unlike in Germany.

While the number of emigrants is hard to calculate with real accuracy, Eurostat records that in 2017 some 869,455 Albanian citizens lived in the EU.

Of them, 429,966 lived in Italy and 383,371 in Greece, meaning that comparatively few live elsewhere.

Since the Eurostat total is half the number of the Albanian diaspora as estimated by INSTAT, there is clearly some discrepancy somewhere, even if we allow for those Albanians who are in the US and other non-EU countries and those within the EU who are no longer counted as Albanians because they have acquired an EU citizenship.

Indeed, between 2012 and 2017, Eurostat records that 286,677 did just that, the overwhelming majority of them in Greece and Italy which, apart from people leaving for economic reasons, accounts for at least some part of their declining numbers in those countries.

In Italy, the number of those registered as Albanians has dropped significantly in recent years but in Greece far less so.

While Albania’s shrinking population is clearly of concern, remittances from the diaspora are a major part of the economy.

While Albania’s shrinking population is clearly of concern, remittances from the diaspora are a major part of the economy.

However, as diaspora families have to spend more on looking after themselves abroad, the percentage contribution to gross domestic product of this money has been declining over the years.

According to the World Bank, in 1993 when almost nothing was working in Albania and following a first exodus of tens of thousands of young men, as much as 28 per cent of GDP was accounted for by remittances. In 2018, it was 9.6 per cent.

Another area of concern with regard to social and demographic development is the fact that not only have large numbers emigrated but they have also moved within Albania.

So, while large numbers in the south have headed to Greece and large numbers from the north to Italy, large numbers from all over Albania have headed to Tirana, leading to increasing depopulation of especially rural and mountainous parts.

In the period 2019-31, the capital is projected to be the only area of the country whose population will increase, so that it will be home to about 35 per cent of the country’s population.

In terms of fertility rates and ageing, Albania is not only similar to much of the rest of the region but to other parts of Europe too.

However, richer countries, unlike the poorer Balkans, have immigration to make up for what would otherwise be declining populations.

But Albania’s population is still comparatively young and the number of its elderly relatively low, and this is a “demographic dividend”, according to Nesturi.

It is one that will only last for a few years, though, or at most a generation, compared with Western Europe where it lasted half a century.

The country needs to take full advantage of this, she said, meaning that the government must make sure that “appropriate economic and social policies are in place to provide these people with productive jobs”.

Otherwise they are going to leave.

Tim Judah is a correspondent for the Economist. He has been working on the subject of demography as a fellow of the Europe’s Futures programme of the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) and the Erste Foundation in Vienna.