The increasingly fractious global geopolitical landscape has severely disrupted the EU integration reform agendas for good governance in the Western Balkans. The lack of a unified European geopolitical will and instruments has allowed Moscow and Beijing to build considerable inroads in the region, cementing state capture networks and emboldening autocrats and kleptocrats to foil anticorruption reforms. Yet, the EU has vowed to fight back and integrate the Western Balkans and countries further east from the Black Sea region.

On October 3, 2024 the SELDI anti-corruption initiative held its regional policy forum in Tirana, in order to discuss the avenues for breaking the anti-corruption deadlock. Daniela Mineva, Senior Analyst at CSD, presented SELDI’s Regional Anti-Corruption Report, which included the latest corruption victimisation data from the Corruption Monitoring System for all countries of the Western Balkans, as well as recommendations for adopting a results-oriented approach in strategic planning of anti-corruption measures. Key suggestions focused on enhancing the investigation and prosecution of high-level corruption, addressing sanctions evasion, and integrating anti-state capture safeguards into the design of EU assistance programs. A panel of policymakers and international experts discussed the report’s key conclusions, including Elisa Spiropali, Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Albania; Adea Pirdeni, Minister of State for Public Administration and Anti-Corruption, Albania, Silvio Gonzato, Head of the European Union Delegation in Albania, Valentina Superti, Director, Western Balkans, Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, European Commission; Daniel Kauffman, Anti-corruption Expert, Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), Emilia Koliqi, Member of Parliament of Albania, Committee for Economy and Finance and Altin Dumani, Head of the Special Prosecution Office (SPAK), Albania.