Albania

Albania has evolved inconsistently in the past decade despite many reforms. It ranks at the bottom on de facto transparency and judicial independence in South-East Europe, despite enjoying freedom of information legislation and an active civil society. Fierce political competition does not result in oversight of government by the opposition, but more often to monopolization of power and deadlock of the political system. Opportunities for corruption remain very high, with large foreign aid and an increasing amount of domestic funds discretionarily allocated via public-private partnerships. A vetting of magistrates carried out by the government with international support was seen by the opposition as partisan and has yet to result in improved outcomes. Despite many reforms of regulation, progress on even simple issues like administrative simplification, creation of cost standards for the public sector, fiscal transparency or transparency of land and business property has been difficult. However, Albania is stable and did not regress by that standard. In fact, it enjoys a good freedom of the press in regional context and a fair share of digital citizens, so demand for good governance is high. Unless reforms are targeted to reduce discretionary abuses of power and increase transparency substantially, we forecast that the many reforms driven by EU accession will remain dead letters, as in other SEE countries before.