TIRANA, Feb. 8 – Over 170 officials and former Albanian officials, along with their families, have been denied or revoked visas for travel to the United States since 2017.
“The US Embassy continues to exercise its broad authority to deny and revoke visas based on information indicating that an individual may be unacceptable in the United States and will continue to use this authority to advance anti-corruption efforts in Albania,” a US Embassy statement told Panorama newspaper on Thursday.
The statement further added it is taking corruption charges and allegations towards public officials very seriously, and that it will continue to go through visa applications from them with extensive controls.
“The US Embassy’s anti-corruption position and its intention to deny US entry to corrupt officials and former officials remains unchanged,” concludes the US statement.
Albania’s level of corruption is estimated to be widespread and worrisome.
Only last week, Albania led Balkan countries in Transparency International’s latest report on perceived levels of public-sector corruption, which described the perception for the region as “highly corrupt” with below-average scores.
This score now makes Albania the 99th most corrupt country in the world.
According to Transparency International “as a country which is candidate for EU membership, Albania has improved over the past five years with five points. But compared to a year ago it has dropped by two points, from 38 to 36th. This may be due to a political stalemate that blocked some anti-corruption reforms to move forward. With a new vetting process and almost complete anti-corruption institutional framework, it remains to be seen whether Albania will improve its future performance,” the TI statement read.
