The OECD/SIGMA Monitoring Report for Albania, 2024, was presented today at the event “Public Service Transformation: Foundations of Public Administration Reform in Albania,” attended by Prime Minister Rama.
The event was co-organized by the Minister of State for Public Administration and Anti-Corruption, alongside OECD/SIGMA, which is an important partner of Albania and the entire Western Balkans in advancing Public Administration Reform as part of the European integration process.
As part of this periodic evaluation, central government structures in Albania were intensively involved from February to October 2024, led by the Minister of State for Public Administration and Anti-Corruption.
As a result, Albania has emerged as a regional leader on average across all 32 indicators assessed in six key areas: Strategy; Policy Development and Coordination; Civil Service and Human Resource Management; Organization, Accountability, and Oversight; Service Delivery and Digitalization; and Public Financial Management.
The Minister of State for Public Administration and Anti-Corruption, Adea Pirdeni, shared that the entire evaluation process was preceded by nearly six months of work, during which 1,536 questions were answered in SIGMA’s electronic system.
“Today, Albania continues to maintain regional leadership in many indicators. More than just a technical analysis, this report provides an honest reflection of Albania’s progress as well as its challenges, and it is concrete proof of the maturity of our public administration,” said Minister Pirdeni.

***

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Greetings to everyone! Allow me to begin this speech with a quote from one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to a friend in 1772: “In the course of public life, we should not expect immediate approval or gratitude for our services, but the satisfaction of a clear conscience is enough, and time will do justice in the minds of people, even those who are prejudiced against us.”

I would like to express my gratitude to SIGMA and to everyone within this organization who has worked and continues to work with the data and facts of the Western Balkans.
Undoubtedly, this is an invaluable source of knowledge. On one hand, it is incredibly encouraging to receive such positive evaluations from this reliable source of objectivity and professionalism. On the other hand, it is equally motivating to gain insights into the areas that still need improvement and attention. This is because building a public administration worthy of the European family is an ongoing journey.

The EU and its mechanisms are the only driving force in this world capable of providing a country like ours—one with a very poor tradition in terms of institutions, and almost nonexistent experience in public administration—the tools needed to carry out this mission. I also took note of a point Mr. Virant highlighted when discussing the clash between legislation, which adopts European law, and the culture of the Western Balkan countries.

This brings us to the EU, to SIGMA, to all the other instruments, and to institutional education, which I believe has become more of a focus than ever before during this period. But there’s still a lot more to be done. We also need to ensure that all key actors—whether institutional, business, or citizens—are well-informed. This is another area where we still have a lot of work to do. And, of course, it all comes down to political will.

On the other hand, there’s a lot of hope here because of the double pressure—one from the public in Albania, which is one of the most pro-European publics, and the other from the EU, which is pushing us to meet all the necessary criteria.
I truly believe we’re in a position that many other countries in the region would envy.                       With the most pro-European population, we have a strong foundation that makes it possible for all the reforms and efforts leading us toward the EU to have the crucial support. Without that support, it would be much harder to carry out and implement those reforms. And I can’t leave this moment without thanking—or, more accurately, joining Mr. Virant in praising—our Minister of State for Public Administration and Anti-Corruption. It’s true that by appointing a dedicated minister for public administration and anti-corruption, we’ve taken an important step in the right direction.

I also want to express my agreement with another point, which I believe Adea and others can confirm is true. Personally, I am not satisfied with how far we’ve come or the quality of talent management in public administration today. There’s still a lot of work to be done, and we’ll gladly welcome any help, especially in terms of expertise, on how we can address this issue. We are also at a historic moment with the entire justice reform process, the process of freeing justice from political influence. We need to face the challenge of ensuring that the work processes in administration—especially those related to decision-making and procurement—are managed properly. These are not easy processes to manage, nor are they easy to investigate or judge. Unfortunately, despite all the good work being done in the fight against corruption, we also see a shrinking of the administration, a result of the insecurity created by certain excesses in this area.
But this is a challenge we need to address together, with the European Commission, with SIGMA in this case, and with other organizations.

Moreover, we have made significant efforts to ease the interaction between citizens and the administration that has been prepared to respond to citizens in the same way the German administration does. In this regard, I believe we, the Balkans, aren’t entirely alone, as we have neighboring countries in the European Union, and while they don’t necessarily shine in how their administrations respond to citizens, our advantage is that we are in a time where we can leverage technology. Thanks to the intensive digitalization of public services, today we are a regional leader and among the top countries in Europe for online services. In fact, 95% of our services are now online, meaning that since the start, 47 million services have been provided—essentially 47 million interactions between citizens and the administration.
However, alongside deregulation, what Mr. Virant mentioned is absolutely true: when it comes to primary legislation, that is, laws, and in this matter we are very attentive, and the feedback we receive is truly welcome because we are dealing with legislation that is aligned with European standards.

At the secondary level, with regard to sub-legal acts, we produce a lot, and this is where the problem lies. We produce too much, and there is a lot of overlap. However, I am very optimistic because, with the Artificial Intelligence model we’ve developed for EU integration, we now have the ability to handle a process that in the past required countries like Slovenia, Croatia, and others to deploy armies of translators and legal experts to draft documents. We can now accomplish 95% of this work through our Artificial Intelligence model, and this is already happening. The model has been successfully tested and is now operational. At the same time, we are conducting tests to perform an in-depth analysis of the entire legislation and sub-legal acts, specifically focusing on overlaps. By utilizing this tool, we will be able to fully “scan” all instances of overlap, where it’s not uncommon for one law to grant something that another law or government decision contradicts, or for one law to state a right and another to deny it. These issues can be resolved by leveraging Artificial Intelligence.

This is a process that has already started, and I truly believe that by our fourth mandate, we will meet our objective of being ready for EU membership.
The other point I want to finish with is public procurement. For me, this is a key area where we can see the tremendous progress we’ve made in the fight against corruption, not through direct action, which is a matter for the justice system, but through modernization. Sadly, many of our international friends, particularly those from the western part of our democratic world, tend to believe that corruption, a difficult legacy in countries like ours, can only be addressed with the “Catch, arrest, convict, and move on” approach. But no! That’s only one side of the issue. In my view, the more challenging and essential side is modernizing the entire system. If our systems aren’t modernized, there is no way corruption can be solved with just the state’s repressive arm. Our governance and administrative systems must be structured in a way that prevents corruption from happening in the first place.

That’s why it’s such a significant achievement for us that SIGMA has rated Albania as a leader in public procurement. I firmly believe we’ve made a huge transformation, and the data clearly shows this, even though the perception is still different.

However, regarding perception, I want to say something to our SIGMA friend: 80% is still not a bad figure. In Albania, 80% of people say, “There’s corruption here, etc.,” but in Greece, it’s around 96%, according to Eurobarometer, and in Portugal, it’s about 92%. I’m not sure how many EU countries have a perception rate above 80%, which, of course, is considered extreme. But in these times, when public mental health is so affected by the madness of social media, anything can be heard, and generally, the most unbelievable things end up being more appealing and repeated more often.
As someone once said—sorry for quoting this name—but it was Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda: “If you want to deceive a nation, make the lie as big as possible and repeat it as often as you can.” That’s how they managed to build the demonized image of the Jews, and so on.
I don’t want to take up too much more of your time. I just want to say that, even in public procurement, we’re definitely not satisfied. We’re working on an Artificial Intelligence model there too, so that, just like with public services, we’ll have a technological toolthat largely manages the process.
This will make the procurement process much more transparent, much faster, and give public administration workers more time to focus on other tasks. When you consider how many procurement committees are formed in Albania, and how many employees at various levels are involved—it’s like an army of tens of thousands of people. Of course, these people aren’t expected to know everything about how procurement processes work. But with the system we’re developing, in a reasonable amount of time, we’ll make a huge leap forward. We’re working closely with Microsoft on this, and we’ve made sure that the copyright will belong to the Albanian government. Once we finish, we’ll be happy to share it with anyone looking to improve procurement systems, including any EU country that asks.

Thank you very much!