{"id":83007,"date":"2026-02-19T13:13:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/?p=83007"},"modified":"2026-02-19T15:13:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T14:13:45","slug":"european-parliament-draft-report-on-albania-corruption-a-serious-challenge-must-be-addressed-at-high-levels-of-governance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/european-parliament-draft-report-on-albania-corruption-a-serious-challenge-must-be-addressed-at-high-levels-of-governance\/","title":{"rendered":"European Parliament Draft Report on Albania: Corruption a Serious Challenge, Must Be Addressed at High Levels of Governance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The European Parliament published its annual draft report on Albania this Thursday, assessing progress and challenges in the areas of the rule of law, justice reform, and anti-corruption. The report acknowledges advancements made, but also highlights shortcomings that require immediate attention from the Albanian authorities.<\/p>\n<p>1. Justice Reform and Vetting<\/p>\n<p>The report notes that the implementation of justice reform, including the vetting of judges and prosecutors, has had a positive impact in increasing accountability and integrity within the judicial system. However, Members of the European Parliament stress that significant challenges remain:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Judicial efficiency remains low.<\/li>\n<li>Courts face a heavy backlog of cases, leading to delays in decisions.<\/li>\n<li>Greater stability in jurisprudence is needed, as well as efforts to limit external influence over judicial decisions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>2. Strengthening Judicial Governance Bodies<\/p>\n<p>The report calls for further strengthening of judicial governance bodies, emphasizing:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Their independence and transparency.<\/li>\n<li>The professional capacity of their members.<\/li>\n<li>Sustainable investments in court infrastructure and digitalization processes, which could improve case management and citizens\u2019 access to justice.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>3. Fight Against Corruption<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, corruption continues to pose a serious challenge for Albania. Although progress has been made in the legal and institutional framework, the European Parliament expresses concern over:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The need to consolidate a solid track record of investigations and prosecutions, particularly in high-level corruption cases.<\/li>\n<li>The importance of addressing corruption at all levels of governance in order to increase public trust in institutions and ensure a predictable business environment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>4. Fight Against Organized Crime<\/p>\n<p>The report underlines the importance of effectively combating organized crime, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Money laundering networks.<\/li>\n<li>Drug trafficking and international criminal activities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>MEPs call for intensified cooperation with EU agencies such as Europol and Eurojust to enhance the effectiveness of investigations and prosecutions in these areas.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, the European Parliament\u2019s report views Albania as being at an intermediate stage of progress, recognizing advancements in justice reform and the anti-corruption framework, but underlining that major challenges remain, particularly in the effective implementation of the law, judicial efficiency, and the fight against corruption and organized crime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The European Parliament published its annual draft report on Albania this Thursday, assessing progress and challenges in the areas of the rule of law, justice reform, and anti-corruption. The report acknowledges advancements made, but also highlights shortcomings that require immediate attention from the Albanian authorities. 1. Justice Reform and Vetting The report notes that the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":83009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[153,1803,1],"tags":[243,151],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>European Parliament Draft Report on Albania: Corruption a Serious Challenge, Must Be Addressed at High Levels of Governance - Euronews Albania<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/european-parliament-draft-report-on-albania-corruption-a-serious-challenge-must-be-addressed-at-high-levels-of-governance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"European Parliament Draft Report on Albania: Corruption a Serious Challenge, Must Be Addressed at High Levels of Governance - Euronews Albania\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The European Parliament published its annual draft report on Albania this Thursday, assessing progress and challenges in the areas of the rule of law, justice reform, and anti-corruption. The report acknowledges advancements made, but also highlights shortcomings that require immediate attention from the Albanian authorities. 1. Justice Reform and Vetting The report notes that the [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/european-parliament-draft-report-on-albania-corruption-a-serious-challenge-must-be-addressed-at-high-levels-of-governance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Euronews Albania\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/euronews.al\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-19T12:13:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-19T14:13:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_8776.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1408\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"798\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nen Si\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@euronewsalbania\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@euronewsalbania\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nen Si\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/european-parliament-draft-report-on-albania-corruption-a-serious-challenge-must-be-addressed-at-high-levels-of-governance\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/european-parliament-draft-report-on-albania-corruption-a-serious-challenge-must-be-addressed-at-high-levels-of-governance\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nen Si\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/444d280f35e047949b7f0bc08093608f\"},\"headline\":\"European Parliament Draft Report on Albania: Corruption a Serious Challenge, Must Be Addressed at High Levels of Governance\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-19T12:13:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-19T14:13:45+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/european-parliament-draft-report-on-albania-corruption-a-serious-challenge-must-be-addressed-at-high-levels-of-governance\/\"},\"wordCount\":355,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/european-parliament-draft-report-on-albania-corruption-a-serious-challenge-must-be-addressed-at-high-levels-of-governance\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_8776.jpeg\",\"keywords\":[\"kryesore 1\",\"Kryesoret\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Albania\",\"Latest news\",\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/european-parliament-draft-report-on-albania-corruption-a-serious-challenge-must-be-addressed-at-high-levels-of-governance\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/european-parliament-draft-report-on-albania-corruption-a-serious-challenge-must-be-addressed-at-high-levels-of-governance\/\",\"name\":\"European Parliament Draft Report on Albania: Corruption a Serious Challenge, Must Be Addressed at High Levels of Governance - 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