Rethinking Municipal Competence in Albania: Effective Decentralisation and the Implications for Administrative-Territorial Reform

By Elda BAGAVIKI, Endirë BUSHATI

Abstract
This article assesses whether Albania’s post-2015 legal framework for local selfgovernment has delivered effective, rather than merely formal, decentralisation, and draws out the implications for the Administrative-Territorial Reform 2.0 (RAT 2.0) now before the decision is taken in the Albanian Parliament. The article combines doctrinal legal analysis of the Constitution, the European Charter of Local Self-Government, Constitutional Court jurisprudence and sectoral legislation with documentary analysis of two independent empirical sources: a legal-financial audit of the legislation implementing Law No. 139/2015 (2019) and the government’s Performance Measurement System covering all 61 municipalities (2023-2024) which have started to be produced on regular basis since 2023. Albania has achieved substantial formal alignment with European standards of local autonomy but continues to fall short of substantive decentralisation. Both empirical sources corroborate a recurring formal-real gap: functions historically exercised locally show the least genuine autonomy, while several functions newly transferred in 2015 are comparatively better regulated but under-resourced. Fiscal dependency on central transfers persists, and the statutory mechanism for monitoring financial adequacy has not been operationalised. The analysis relies on two government-produced datasets that are not independently audited, and the 2019 legal audit predates several subsequent legislative amendments. A second territorial reform confined to redrawing municipal boundaries would leave the more consequential legal-harmonisation and fiscal-adequacy deficits identified here unaddressed. This is the first study to combine doctrinal legal analysis with two independent empirical audits of Albanian municipal competence to inform the ongoing RAT 2.0 debate.
Keywords: Municipal competences; Local self-government; Fiscal autonomy; Administrative-Territorial reform; Subsidiarity.