The 15th Subcommittee meeting on Trade, Industry, Customs and Taxation between the EU and Albania

The 15th Subcommittee meeting on Trade, Industry, Customs and Taxation between the EU and Albania took place on 23 & 24 October 2024 in Brussels. For the EU, representatives from the European Commission (Commission) discussed the most recent developments in these areas with the relevant Albanian authorities. The meeting was co-chaired for the EU by Mr. Andrew Williams, Permanent Secretary for the Subcommittee at the Directorate General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations of the Commission, and for Albania by Mr. Genti Gazheli, Director General of the Albania's Customs Directorate.

In the area of free movement of goods, the Commission took note of the ongoing progress to enable Albania to become a full member of the European Committee for Standardisation and of the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation (CEN/CENELEC). It also acknowledged the progress made to fully staff its market surveillance authorities. The Commission urges Albania to continue its efforts to align its product legislation including the relevant chemical and vehicle legislation.

The Commission also welcomed Albania's update on the industrial policy under its Business and Investment Development Strategy and Albania's intention to publish the reports on progress monitoring and outcome evaluation. The Commission emphasised the importance of Albania's efforts at burden reduction and streamlining of the work by National Business Centre. The Commission welcomed Albania's efforts at regulatory and administrative burden reduction and streamlining of the work by the National Business Centre. The Commission welcomed Albania's of the announced new Law on Investments in the Albanian Reform Agenda. The Commission encouraged Albania to make further progress on aligning to the EU Late Payment Directive. The Commission congratulated Albania for having officially joined the EU Single Market Programme (SMP) in January 2024. In regard to the tourism sector, the Commission congratulated Albania on its progress and took note of the preparation of the new 2024-2030 National Tourism Strategy.

On trade policy, the Commission noted a decrease of 5.6% of the bilateral trade in 2023 with the total of traded goods reaching EUR 7 billion. The Commission also encouraged Albania to examine the low utilisation rate of the trade preferences by its exporters, which recently declined to an average of 52%. The Commission applauded the recent approval of the nine pending Joint Committee decisions by all CEFTA parties as well as the launch of the second part of the Common Regional Market Action Plan which are key steps to unlock the economic potential of the region. Albania was commended for its continued alignment with the EU sanctions regime with regard to Russia and was invited to start the process for developing a national Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) screening mechanism, in line with the EU evolving legislation.

On taxation, the Commission welcomed the publication of the Draft Medium-Term Revenue Strategy and shared initial views on some of its measures. In the area of customs, the Commission welcomed progress in legislative alignment to the Customs Acquis and Albania's plans to join the Common Transit Convention while stressing the urgency for Albania to quickly ratify its participation in the EU's Customs Program, in particular to allow the deployment of the necessary IT infrastructure. The Commission finally noted Albania's ongoing efforts on measures against fraud and smuggling.