Albania still maintained some links with the outside world at this time, trading with neutral countries, such as Austria and Sweden, and establishing links across the Adriatic Sea with its former colonial power Italy. However, a modest relaxation of domestic controls was curtailed by Hoxha in 1973 with a renewed wave of repression and purges directed against individuals, the young and the military, whom he feared might threaten his hold on the country. A new constitution was introduced in 1976 that increased the Communist Party's control of the country, limited private property and forbade foreign loans. The country sank into a decade of paranoid isolation and economic stagnation, virtually cut off from the outside world.
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