In an explanatory note concerning the functioning and the structure of the International Monitoring Operation (ONM), Director Genoveva Ruiz Calavera has responded to the comments of Minister of Justice Petrit Vasili that the installation of the Management Board requires the negotiation of additional communication protocols between the government and the ONM.
Ruiz Calavera denied that this is necessary, as according to the Constitution the only obligatory communication was the government’s request to install the ONM and the ONM notifying the government about the appointment of the international observers.
The European Commission services cannot comment on the concerns regarding the communication related to the IMO [=ONM] within the government of Albania, as this is an issue of internal organisation to the latter.
On whether the Council of Minister of Albania should have provided an authorisation concerning the tasks and functioning of the IMO, the Annex to the Constitution of Albania (Art. B.2) only mentions as a formal requirement a notification of the appointment of international observers by the IMO to the Council of Ministers. Such notification has been addressed by the Chair of the IMO to the attention of the Secretary General to the Council of Minister, since the latter was the authority that wrote to the European Commission services and requested the launch and beginning of activities by the IMO. Other Albanian authorities, having a specific formal or diplomatic role in the different procedural steps of the setting up of the IMO, were duly copied to the relevant correspondence.
So the Director of the ONM basically told Minister Vasili to check with his colleagues in the government.
Ever since Minister Vasili replaced Ylli Manjani as Minister of Justice, he has been critical of the constitutionality of the Management Board of the ONM, and recently claimed that Secretary General Ëngjell Agaçi did not have the legal competency to request the European Commission to launch the ONM.
Behind these critiques lies the tension within the government between LSI ministers such as Vasili, and PS Prime Minister Edi Rama.
