Albanian parliament makes Italian-fueled steps of progress

TIRANA, Feb 9 – This week, IPALMO, a non-profit organization in partnership with the Embassy of Italy in Tirana and in collaboration with the Italian Chamber of Deputies and the Albanian Parliament, organized a training seminar for Albanian officials and parliamentarians with focus on the role of parliaments in the institutional consolidation of the democratic process and the path towards European integration.
The meetings served to deepen and consolidate the results of several significant initiatives carried out in various Balkan countries in the field of inter-parliamentary cooperation and strengthening rule of law. For Albania, this is especially critical as it seeks to earn EU candidate status this year.
“2012 is going to be a very important year for Albania,” Alessandro Battilocchio, a former member of the European Parliament and project participant, told Tirana Times.
“The twelve recommendations must be fulfilled, and that will require the cooperation of both parties in the parliament. The challenge is now, not in the future.”
The project began with the first seminar: “Strengthening Parlia-ments and European Integration.” Its key objective was to strengthen the relationship between Italy and Albania in the field of institutional cooperation and provide assistance to the Albanian Parliament for an adjustment of its organization to a functional parliamentary democracy in the prospect of EU membership. In particular, two items were of focus: the parliamentary rules and the specific structures of support and information to legislative Parliament
The event took place at the headquarters of the Albanian Parliament, and was opened by the Ambassador of Italy in Tirana, Massimo Gaiani, Director General of the European Commission for Enlargement Stefano Sannino, and the President of the Parliament of Albania Jozefina Topalli. Later in the session, which was devoted to parliamentary rules, Professor Oreste Massari of University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Albert Rakipi, director of the Albanian Institute of International Studies, and Mr. David Favia and Fatos Beja also presented.
Members of the roundtable on the “Future of Europe” included Mr. Richard Best, President of the Italian Parliamentary Delegation to the OSCE, OSCE PA Deputy President, Minister of European Integration Majilinda Bregu, Mr. Massimo Vannucci, Alessandro Battilocchio and Ditmir Sulejman Bushati.
Following the session and meetings with both main Albanian parties, Alessandro Battilocchio noted: “From my discussions with both parties, I have a good feeling that they want to commence dialogue with each other. They were very receptive.”
The second seminar focused on the administrative structures and information systems of relations with Italian parliamentary advisers Carlo Frati and Carlo Simonelli and Albanian parliamentary officials, Zana Bufi and Eraldi Elmasllari.
Carlo Simonelli spoke with Tirana Times, and expressed his optimism for the Albanian parliament’s technical abilities.
“Albania has done a great job in its technical development. Its progress is fantastic. This can be seen, for example, in Albania’s implementation of an electronic voting system! Essentially, Albania is running on the same system as Italy,” he noted.
Still, however, it will be difficult for the parliament to keep up with the expensive technological developments to come, as it is operating with a very small budget, added Carlo Simonelli.
IPALMO’s initiatives, which have existed since 2008 in Albania, were made possible with the assistance of the Chamber of Deputies and the contribution of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and in light of the success of this most recent one, Silverio Iannielloؖice President of IPALMOخoted his optimism for future Albanian initiatives.
“The true results of these sessions will become clear with time, and we intend to follow-up on them,” he concluded.