Council of Europe, PACE co-rapporteurs urge reforms

TIRANA, Nov 3 – Ian Micallef, President a.i. of the Council of Europe Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, paid an official visit to Albania to assess the situation of local and regional democracy in the country.
Tirana was also visited by Jaakko Laakso (Finland, UEL) and David Wilshire (United Kingdom, EDG), co-rapporteurs for Albania of the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), who conducted a fact-finding visit to take stock of the honoring of obligations and commitments by Albania vis-ஶis the Council of Europe.
Micallef met Albanian President Bamir Topi, Prime Minister Sali Berisha, Interior Minister Lulzim Basha and Tirana Mayor Edi Rama, as well as Fatos Hodaj, Director General of the Albanian Association of Municipalities, and Refik Rrugeja, Head of the Albanian delegation to the Congress and General Rapporteur for Local and Regional Democracy in South-East Europe.
These top officials, who also met with the top officials, will finalize a report which will be debated at the January plenary session of PACE (25-29 January 2010).
The co-rapporteurs also met with the mayors of several towns and cities, including Tirana and Shkoder, and representatives of the Montenegrin minority.
Rama and other opposition city mayors complained to them on the intervention of the central government to their competencies.
The Congress’ latest report on the state of local and regional democracy in Albania was issued in October 2006. In March 2007, the Congress adopted a recommendation following local elections in the country, observed in February 2007.
Ian Micallef will report on the results of the visit to the Bureau of the Congress, meeting in December 2009.
Micallef also called on the opposition to end their boycott of the parliament and also of the upcoming partial local elections of Nov. 15 saying that ht parliament was the place to hold the political fight.
Coinciding with the visit, on 2 and 3 November, an international seminar on decentralization and local governance in South-East Europe and South Caucasus was held in Shkodra, home to Albania’s first local democracy agency (which is part of a network set up at the Congress’ initiative). The seminar focused on the challenges of decentralization and ways of strengthening the role of local government as a catalyst for local revival.