Freedom House: Albania, a partially free country

Freedom House published the annual report of freedom, and Albania is ranked as a partially free country. While Kosovo has achieved some progress being included for the first time in countries with electoral democracy. 

According to the Freedom House report published by Voice of America, Albania continues to have the same degree of estimation, taking 3 points for the state of freedom in general, in a measuring system with a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 being the best and 7 the worst. 

According to Freedom House the country did not move forward because reforms are still in the early stages. "Of course we would prefer that Albania had scored more progress," says Arch Puddington, vice / president for research at the organization.

He attributes the evaluation to the lack of progress, history of oppression of the totalitarian regime of Enver Hoxha, which he says was more severe than other countries of Eastern Europe. 

The report mentions that the government of Prime Minister Rama obtained in 2014, the status of candidate country after three previous postponements and has been praised for measures taken against organized crime, the new law on freedom of information etc.

Meanwhile, according to the Freedom House, the country continued to suffer the consequences of political disputes, including the boycott of parliament by the opposition, the impunity of officials and former senior officials accused of corruption and a legacy of political appointments to the posts of judges.

Mr. Puddington says that if you want to join the EU, Albania needs to intensify its efforts. "One of the things we learned is that when a country joins the EU, tends to respect democratic standards steadily, so we hope that Albania can achieve that goal."