The European Parliament (EP) has published the declaration approved on 13 October 2018 by the EU-Albania Stabilisation and Association Parliamentary Committee (SAPC). Albania is recommended to complete the reforms and key priorities set by the European Union (EU) as the only way for Albania-EU negotiations to open.
Here are some of SAPC’s main recommendations to Albania:
- SAPC calls on all political parties to contribute toward the approval and implementation of the electoral reform before the 2019 elections. SAPC reminds that free and fair elections are an essential element of Albania’s EU accession process.
- SAPC insists on the need to timely implement OSCE/ODIHR recommendations that are still outstanding from various rounds of postelection reports, especially those related to the independence and depolitisation of the election administration, transparency in campaign finance, voter registration, vote buying and out-of-country voting.
- SAPC underlines the need for concrete and irreversible results in the implementation of justice reform, with the establishment of the independent judicial structures foreseen by the Constitutional reform, including the Special Anti-Corruption and Organised Crime Structure (SPAK) and National Bureau of Investigation (BKH).
- SAPC calls on the government to focus on the fight against corruption, organised crime and money laundering.
The implementation of the Electoral Reform is therefore crucial for the opening of EU accession negotiations. As Exit has explained before, it seems however unlikely that Parliament will be able to implement all the necessary legal changes on time.
