The Institute for Democracy and Mediation, Tirana (IDM) in cooperation with the Parliamentary Committee on National Security of Albania (PCNS) organized on 18 July 2014, at Hotel Grand, Tirana, a round table, concerning the draft law “On the National Security Strategy of the Republic of Albania” (NSS) which the Council of Ministers has recently submitted to the Parliament for adoption. This event organized by IDM, is the sixth one, part of a project supported by Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of the Armed Forces (DCAF) focused on and providing expertise in strengthening of the effective parliamentary oversight and control over the security sector in Albania.

The round table brought together parliamentarians, members of the PCNS, representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Albanian Armed Forces, analysts, representatives of the civil society, media, academia, etc, with the intention of exchanging ideas and providing expertise for improving of the above-mentioned draft.

The event was considered by all participants as organized in due time. That’s, first of all, due to the fact that the current NSS, is adopted by the Parliament in 2004, as such, it has already lost its relevance because of several security developments, which have happened ever since. On the other hand, since the new draft has been already submitted to the Parliament for adoption, and it is expected to go through parliamentary committees’ debates prior to final adoption (expected by the end of July) the round table was considered a good opportunity, for bringing together experts of different institutions to discuss and provide their own expertise on the NSS content.

The round table was organized in one panel, with participation of Mr Sokol Dervishi (the Deputy Minister, MFA and the Chairman of the Coordinating Working Group for the NSS) and Mr Foto Duro (researcher, IDM).

The IDM Executive Director, Mr Sotiraq Hroni opened the event and delivered some remarks on the process and content of the draft NSS. In addition he stressed the need for a more institutionalized and more constructive consultation with the civil society during the whole NSS drafting process.

Mr Dervishi provided a short description of the process which brought about the new NSS and a short overview of the NSS itself, with some of its more distinguished features, while, Mr Duro, on behalf of the IDM, provided some comments and recommendations related to the new NSS. Despite some of his highlights on the strengths of the new NSS (the high level of institution inclusion, the quality of security environment analysis and threat assessment, clear delineation of institution responsibilities, etc) he presented some areas where the new NSS might be further refined and improved.

The debates that followed served to better complete the picture related to security issues in Albania and how they should be/have been reflected in the new NSS.

As it was expected, the event drew the intention of several media outlets (A1 Report; Albanian Screen; Agon Channel; Kosova Press, etc).