Nations in Transit 2011: Albania

Freedom House has published the annual report “Nations in Transit 2011”, which analyses the level of Albania’s progress towards democratisation in important areas such as: central government; election process; civil society; media independence; Local government; independence of the judiciary; and corruption, the areas that are crucial to meeting Copenhagen’s political criteria. This is the fourth consecutive year that AME staff engages in the preparation of this report.
Unfortunately, the result of the level of democracy in Albania for 2011 has deteriorated from 3.93 to 4.04, thus achieving the 2005 level of performance. This downward trend has to do with: election process, democracy at the level of central government and local. Meanwhile, the assessment of other elements, including the legal framework and judicial independence, corruption, media independence and civil society remains unchanged.
This is the 15th edition of Freedom House’s “Nations in Transit 2011” report, which is a comprehensive comparative study of democratic developments in 29 countries from Central Europe to Eurasia. The key conclusion of the 2011 report is that among the Western Balkan countries, apart from Croatia and Serbia, which have made modest progress as part of their EU accession efforts, the five other countries have fallen compared to the year of previous.