Prime Ministers of Albania

Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias on Monday attended the international donors' conference "Together for Albania," which was hosted by the European Union in Brussels and aimed to muster support for the reconstruction effort in Albania following November's deadly earthquake.

Albania Prime Minister Edi Rama speaking in parliament on 30 January. Photo: Malton Dibra/LSA

The head of the Socialist parliamentary group, Taulant Balla, said the vote would be postponed while the Council of Venice, the advisory body to the Council of Europe, carried out an express evaluation.

Prosecutors in Albania summoned a mayor for questioning on Thursday over a video filmed by a security camera from above, showing someone apparently snorting cocaine.

Pressure is growing on the Albanian government over its "anti-defamation" laws, after the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, CoE, said it had asked its advisory body, the Venice Commission, for its opinion.

Albanian President Ilir Meta speaking to the media in Tirana on 20 December 2019. Photo: Malton Dibra/LSA

The new laws "could place the Albania on the brink of authoritarianism and endanger its [EU] integration and the very existence of democracy in the country," Meta wrote in the explanatory note accompanying his decree.

JANUARY

January 11 - Romania begins a six-month EU Council presidency amid anti-government protests at home and calls from EU leaders to respect the rule of law.

January 17 - Human Rights Watch's World Report 2019 highlights threats to journalists and minority and immigrants' rights as key problems in the Balkans.

Fears grow over the state of media freedom in Albania after Edi Rama's Socialist government pushed through laws that critics say will allow it to censor online media.

Serbian President will visit Tirana on Friday and Saturday, where he will take part in the "Mini Schengen" Summit.
In front of the hotel where the President of Serbia is supposed to be staying, a banner was put up, with the inscription "Here comes a war criminal, disguised as a benefactor".

Albanian Parliamentary Commission of Laws, on November 22, 2019. Photo: Gjergj Erebara/BIRN

On Thursday, Mark Marku, Dean of the Department of Journalism and Communications in the University of Tirana, told MPs debating the laws in the parliament's Commission on Media and Education that "nobody in his right mind could possibly support such laws".

"The European perspective of the Western Balkans, which has been the basis of US engagement in the region for more than 20 years, has not changed and will not change", Matthew Palmer, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and US Special Representative for the Western Balkans said.