Albanian constitutional rights in the framework of the implementation of stabilisation and association agreement with EU

• Author: Aurela Anastasi
• Pages: 395-407

395

AURELA ANASTASI

Issues of the albanian constitution in the framework of

the european integration

1. The Albanian Constitution, compiled in year 1998, after the

signing of Association Agreements with many Eastern European

countries, provides for a number of provisions which serve the integration

process of Albania in the European Union. Until it came into force, it was

only the Constitution of Poland which contained provisions on the terms

of integration and the delegation of powers. In other countries of Central

and Eastern Europe, which had signed European Association Agreements,

the amendments of the Constitution were realized, especially, in the

2000-es. In the meantime, in old EU-member countries, there were

different delegation models, which were mainly defined by the

amendments of the Constitutions1. Different authors mention some

factors, which made the amendments in the constitutions of other Central

and Eastern European countries to be accomplished with difficulty.

Among the main factors it’s worth to mention: the suspicions of the

people about the delegation of the sovereignty; the spread of euro-

skepticism in a number of candidate countries, as well as the referendum-

applied experiences, which in some cases have delayed the processes.2

Thus, a deceleration was kept in the revision of the constitution, with

the aim of not transforming the quite advanced formulations on the

delegation of the sovereignty into a battle horse for the pretentions of the

euro-skeptics.

In case of Albania we do notice some differences. It had a climate,

which from the formal constitutional point of view, it hadn’t suffered

from any “European deficit“, that’s to say, from any lack of constitutional

provisions which authorize the processes of a complete integration in EU.

Important terms of integration were provided for in the Constitution of

the year 1998, on the eve of the beginning of the Stabilization and

Association Process with Albania. These predictions were supported by

the European feelings of the Albanian people and were result of the

experiences on the amendment of the constitutions from the old EU-

member countries, as well as of the constitutional opinion developed in

Europe. The public opinion in Albania has created a rather optimist

1 See: A. ALBI, “EU enlargement and the Constitutions of Central and Eastern Euro-

pe”, Cambridge University Press, 2005 , page 9-14.

2 See: idem.