Dirk Lange on BiH and Albania Progress Reports, 2007, www.seetv-exchanges.com

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

It is a positive signal for the cooperation between the political leaders of the country but these good intentions in the declaration have to be followed by the concrete actions. If there is for example the adoption of the laws that are mentioned in the Mostar declaration this could actually pave the way for the conclusion of the SA Agreement.

At the moment it seems that the police reform is the most critical one. We see some progress in the public administration reform, we see progress in the cooperation with the ICTY although full cooperation needs to be achieved, and for the public broadcaster wee see that the law is at the moment under the consideration of the constitutional court so we wait for this.

On attempts to make links between status of Kosovo and situation in BiH

As I said the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovinais rather critical and there are lot of internal problems. These problems exist with or without the Kosovo issue. Some politicians want to link the question on Kosovo with the situation in BiH and I think it is a big risk, this will further complicate the situation in BiH and the other countries and this is certainly a difficulty if this continues.

ALBANIA

On judiciary reforms in Albania

We have seen some progress for the reforms of judiciary, notably building up additional capacities and training but we also see that there are remaining problems, notably the law which would allow bigger…. is still in the parliamentary procedure. On the electoral side we have seen little progress there in reforming electoral system. The local elections in spring 2007 has been considered as missed opportunity that the elections in Albania can be conducted according to international standards and this has to be tackled without further delay.

There are efforts to make the administration more efficient and than to help Albaniato meet the requirements of the acquis. We have one positive example when we are talking about the implementation of the interim agreement where we can see that the Albanian administration works properly. Having said this, it is clear that the public administration sector has to further improve capacity and also training and quality of the people.