The Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, in its capacity as National IPA Coordinator (NIPAC), hosted the annual meeting of the Monitoring Committee of the Instrument for Pre-Accession (IPA) on 21 May 2019.

The Committee is a high-level meeting gathering once a year. This year, it was co-chaired by Mr. Sokol Dedja, Deputy Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs as National IPA Coordinator for the Albanian side, and Mr. Georg Ziegler, Deputy Head of Unit for Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina, DG NEAR (European Commission).

The aim of this meeting is to review the overall progress in the implementation of EU financial assistance, as well as to discuss about different issues arising from the management of IPA portfolio in Albania.

The state of play of on-going most important projects was reviewed including sector reform contracts such as Public Administration Reform, Public Finance Management, Employment and Skills, EU for Justice Reform and Anti-corruption.

This meeting included in-depth discussions in 3 sectors: (i) Democracy and governance (ii) Rule of law and fundamental rights and (iii) Education, Employment and social protection. All on-going projects or projects that have been completed in 2018 were reviewed, highlighting the progress in carrying out the envisaged activities, achievements of agreed indicators in programme documents, problematic issues in implementation, corrective actions taken or planned for the upcoming year.

For the first time in 2018 the Sector Monitoring Committees have been set up in Albania, as a beneficiary country of IPA II funds. These committees are part of the sector integrated mechanism led by Prime Minister’s office and the MEFA in its role as NIPAC. In 2019, the first SMC meetings in the sectors of Agriculture and Rural Development, Employment, Transport, Water, Competitiveness and Innovation have been held. Based on the legal framework, the SMC meetings will be organised twice a year. In the meetings of May 2019, IPA portfolio in each sector and the implementation issues and action plans for 2019 have been examined. The conclusions of these meetings were presented in the EU – Albania IPA Monitoring Committee of 21^st May. During the month of June, SMC meetings in the sectors of Democracy and Governance and Rule of Law and fundamental rights are planned. The second round of SMC meetings will be held in October-November 2019.

In the afternoon session of IPA Monitoring Committee, the projects under WBIF (Western Balkans Investment Framework), participation in Union Programmes, the Civil society facility, IPA multi-country programmes, as well as programmes under Territorial cooperation and regional cooperation were be presented.

In this meeting, the progress regarding indirect management projects under the programming years 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017 has been reviewed, including tendering, implementation, disbursement, irregularities as well as auditing results for the year 2018, together with issues related to the functioning of national system of management and control under the indirect implementation mode..

In order to increase transparency, responsiveness and to ensure the overall inclusion of all actors involved in these proceedings, members of civil society organisations being part of the National Council of Civil Society and representatives of Member States were invited to attend the Committee meeting.