In the context of the Expertise Co-ordination Mechanism (ECM) two important requests for legal opinion were submitted to the Venice Commission. The first request deriving from the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) concerned the amendments to the Law No. 97/2013 “On Audiovisual Media Service”, as the second request coming from the Albanian Assembly concerned the appointment procedure of the Constitutional Court’s members.
In this view, the respective Venice Commission delegations carried out the fact-finding visits in Tirana on 10-11 February and 13-14 February 2020 and exchanged views with the key domestic and international stakeholders.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic break, both opinions are rescheduled for adoption in the June session of the Venice Commission, while their findings and recommendations constitute among the key references for opening of EU accession negotiations with Albania.
The Expertise Co-ordination Mechanism is part of the EU and Council of Europe joint programme Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022, which aims to support Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey in their compliance with European standards.
*This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence.
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