Democracy and Good Governance

Since its establishment, EMA’s policy work has been focused on multi prong themes related to the promotion and strengthening of the democratization process of Albania. EMA believes in civic education and enhanced participation in public life from the part of non-state actors and citizens as a means to increase institutional transparency and accountability. We work in this direction with central and local government. We continuously carry out capacity building, monitoring and budget monitoring activities with a view of enhancing democracy and good governance in Albania as key EU standards.

Projects undertaken under this programme area are as below:

Building Partnership on Fundamentals: Empowered CSOs in the EU Accession Process (2023 – ongoing) This three year action led by European Movement Albania and supported by the European Union (CSF 2021 IPA programme), in partnership with Academy of European Integration and Negotiations, Centre for Transparency and Freedom of Information and Research Center of Slovak Foreign Policy Association, focuses on civic participation, policy dialogue, cooperation among stakeholders, in frame of EU integration process of the country and of the start of negotiations linked strongly with the preparatory work for the opening of the Cluster 1 – Fundamentals First. The action aims to support CSOs in Albania to play their oversight and monitoring roles in the fields of good governance and rule of law and offers an open space for civic discussion, between state institutions and non-state actors. There are four components of this action interlinked with each-other: 1) Participation through Inclusion – Dialogue – Engagement; 2) Capacity building; 3) Monitoring and research; 4) Informing
Erasmus+ program of the EU Jean Monnet- Center of Excellence “The Europeanization of Public Policies in Albania (EPPAL)” (2022 – 2025) promotes synergies between public university departments both experienced and inexperienced in European Studies, policymakers, relevant NGOs and other civil society actors. It has four main objectives: 1) Promote excellence in teaching in the field of European Union studies: teaching modules addressing the impact of EU Integration from multidisciplinary perspectives in both faculties that have an already proven Jean Monnet experience and faculties that are newly included in EU specific courses; 2) Advanced research in the law, political science, economy, and sociology areas, to evaluate the Albanian progress with the Europeanization of formal and informal procedures and processes; 3) Foster the dialogue between the academic world and society: training activities with lawyers; open forums with policymakers, experts, and civil society representatives. 4) Reach out to the general public and spread knowledge about the EU: dissemination events such as online academic forums with national and international researchers and EU representatives, as well as debate tournaments to train and engage UT students in the discussion of Integration Process strategies and procedures. EMA is the partner of this project, responsible for the dissemination and promotion of events.

Migration Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) (2015-2016; 2019-2020), led by the Migration Policy Group (MPG) and CIDOB, covers the period 2014-2019. MIPEX2020 is a unique tool which measures policies to integrate migrants in 52 countries across five continents including all EU countries + UK and three countries from Western Balkans (Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia). MIPEX measures policies that promote integration in all societies. The different indicators included on the reports create multi-dimensional picture of migrants’ opportunities to participate in society based on 8 areas: labour market; education; family reunion; political participation; permanent residence; access to nationality; antidiscrimination; and health. EMA is the partner of MIPEX of Albania, and its researchers are involved on the assessment reports for Albania based on eight areas of evaluation. Find more: https://www.mipex.eu/albania

Albanian Law Journal (2016-present) initially supported by the Netherlands Embassy in Tirana, established by EMA has as the main goal to offer in depth analysis of the Albanian legal and institutional framework, and human rights issues, identifying legal and institutional gaps followed by concrete recommendations on necessary amendments and procedures to address spotted problems. Its objectives is to lay the foundations of a more elaborated Albanian legal scholarship which may result helpful to law students during their studies, policy experts and lawyers during their daily work and also to judges during their doctrinal creation. More information on ALJ you may find in its official webpage: www.lawjournal.al

Building bridges – A new cooperation culture between local institutions and their communities (2016- June 2017) a project funded by National Endowment for Democracy, seeks to provide sufficient, simplified information about the advantages, as well as possible negative side-effects of the Territorial Administrative Reform; establish a permanent and continuous dialogue between local communities (citizens, NGOs, media, scholars)and political and technical officials of municipalities; and create the legal instruments that guaranties the inclusion of citizens in the local policy and decision-making processes.

In quest of coherent and efficient policies for Albanian regions: Building bridges of cooperation between local and central actors ( September 2011 – June 2012) supported by United States Embassy. This project is conceived to take action upon the deep lack of communication and coordination between institutions and actors, facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue and conducting policy research to gather actors around current issues and shortcomings affecting the social and economic development in the regions of Durres, Vlora, Elbasan, and Shkodra.

Encouraging local government accountability: Support to the Municipality of Vlora to improve public information (May 2011 – February 2012) supported by World Bank and British Council. The overall goal of this initiative is to tackle deficiencies in access to information and unaccountable practices in the municipality of Vlora, through support to improve the transparency of its activity and the communication links with the public.

Upgrading the understanding of International Relations and Changing the Role of the State (June 2010 – June 2011) supported by U.S.A Embassy in Albania. The overall objective of this initiative was to substantially improve the teaching and researching capacities in the Albanian Universities, with a special focus to the public ones which are unprivileged by virtue of limited public funds. Furthermore, the project also achieved to enhance and enrich debate and understanding on such issues at the level of academic and policy circles, in the media, NGOs and politics, which would then be reflected in society at large.

Role of the Albanian Parliament in the EU integration process (September 2010 – January 2011) supported by the German Council on Foreign Relations. The project aimed to explore the performance of this institutions on the Albanian path towards EU by analyzing its administrative capacities to meet the needs for adopting national policies and legislation with the EU policies and EU acquis structure as well as its overall work carried out in the framework of accelerating the EU integration agenda. By collecting and analysing different facts and views of national and international stakeholders/institutions present in Albania, EMA presented a set of conclusions and recommendations for an enhanced role of this institution in the national political context in view of the EU integration efforts.

Improve the quality of the electoral process through monitoring the process of ID Cards Issuing (April 2009 – October 2009) supported by U.S.A Embassy in Albania. The aim of the project was to enhance the transparency of the process of ID Cards issuing as one of the fundamental aspects linked directly with the free and fair elections in Albania. Through a set of recommendations based on a systematic monitoring process and addressed to all state and non state actors, EMA contributed in improving and making this process successful.

Monitoring Visa Liberalization process in Albania (March 2009 – January 2009) supported by Balkan Trust for Democracy (BTD), a Project of the German Marshal Fund. This project intended to support the strong desire of Albanian citizens for having a visa free regime with European Communities, by monitoring the implementation of 42 benchmarks embedded in the Visa Liberalization Road Map which was handed over to Albanian Government on 3 June 2008. Since the monitoring process of the implementation of the Visa Liberalization Road Map examined the compliance of Albania with the criteria deriving from the Regulation 539/2001 of the EU, consequently it illustrated the readiness of Albania to move towards Schengen white list.

Does it really matter? Visa Facilitation in the Western Balkans (March 2008 – August 2008) supported by King Baudouin Foundation and East-East Partnership without Borders Programe, Open Society Foundation in partnership with European Citizen’s Action Service and Stefan Batory Foundation. The project aimed at monitoring the implementation of the Visa Facilitation Agreements in Western Balkan countries by setting up hotline consulting visa applicants in Schengen Embassies and conducting a more in-depth quantitative survey in Schengen Embassies. This regional project was implemented simultaneously in Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.