EU official: Vetting, crucial in Albania’s EU integration path
An EU official reiterated that the Vetting law is crucial in Albania’s European Integration path and a condition to be fulfilled before opening accession negotiations.
The Director for Western Balkans at Directorate General for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, Genoveva Ruiz Calavera, will chair the International Monitoring Operation for the vetting process. On Wednesday she spoke for the first time to reporters. “I believe our message was clear. This is a crucial process to open the gate of EU accession negotiations,” she said.
Calavera said that the International Monitoring Operation will oversee the vetting process, but will not take any executive decision.
“The International Monitoring Operation will oversee vetting professionally, transparently, impartially and according to the law. This will increase trust in this crucial process,” she said.
On Thursday another monitoring group is awaited to arrive in capital Tirana to oversee the first phase of election of vetting organ’s 27 members.
The vetting law is the key component of the judicial reform in the country, one of the most important requests of the European Commission before opening accession negotiations with Albania, a country aspiring to join the European Union.
The EURALIUS, an EU technical assistance project to assist in the consolidation of the justice system in Albania says that the Vetting law will initiate an evaluation process for the judges and prosecutors, members of the Constitutional Court and the High Court, legal advisers in the Constitutional and High Court, legal assistants in the administrative courts and legal assistants in the General Prosecution Office.
“The evaluation process will be based on the assets check, background check (connections with the crime and criminals) and professionalism of the judges and prosecutors,” EURALIUS says in its website./tvklan.al