Expert Meeting in Albania

The EU-En4s consortium saw its final expert meeting take place on the 4th and 5th of March 2022. The meeting was held in a very hospitable location in Tirana, Albania; hosted by the University of Tirana. The  location was chosen with a specific intent. Namely, Albania is a candidate State for accession to the EU and the project deliverables aim to facilitate the mutual understanding of Albanian and EU enforcement titles and identify points of contention for necessary approximation of laws in the accession process. Apart from that, of course, the project the benefit each EU jurisdiction.

Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic and the military engagement in Ukraine prevented a great number of partners from attending the meeting live. Delegations from the University of Maribor, Uppsala University, Maastricht university, University of Rijeka, Cepris Ltd and Boleo Global attended the meeting in situ, together with the host faculty. The remaining partners were adjoined via a streaming platform.

At the outset, the rector of the University of Tirana, prof. dr. Artan Hoxha, greeted the consortium. He was followed by a presentation by prof. dr. Flutura Kola, who briefly went over the Albanian system of recognition and enforcement and its potential to accommodate to the EU legal order. Afterwards, prof. dr. Vesna Rijavec, the coordinator of the project from the University of Maribor, took the stage and provided some general remarks on the achievements of the project and its importance. Later, assist. Denis Baghrizabehi from the University of Maribor conducted an detailed overview of the past and ongoing activities and deliverables of the project. The project started with a kick-off meeting in June 2019 in Maribor. Shortly afterwards, partners conducted national workshops to gather feedback for drafting the main questionnaire of the project. In the beginning, dissemination activities also took place. This involved the drafting of a flyer, a brochure, setting up a webpage, a Facebook and Twitter account and a blog. In addition to the main questionnaire, a questionnaire on the structure of judgements, automated enforcement proceedings and on interest rates was also drafted. All of these required (national) reports from partners. Two international conferences and one expert meeting were already held before the final meeting. Many adjacent deliverables were also drafted, including a glossary and enforcement manual. Denis was succeeded by dr. Boštjan Kežmah from Cepris Ltd who presented the various IT deliverables of the project (the prototypes of the enforcement title Oracle and Interest Calculator). The remainder of the meeting was devoted to a professional/scientific discussion between all partners regarding one of the main remaining deliverables, i.e. the final expert report of the project. The discussion continued the next day, after which Ms. Jasmina Klojčnik from the University of Maribor presented the final reporting requirements. While the first day was chaired by prof. dr. Eduard Kunštek from the University of Rijeka, the second day was chaired by prof. dr. Vesna Rijavec and assist. Denis Baghrizabehi.

At this point in time, the whole consortium is working hard on delivering the few, albeit very important results and bringing the project to a successful end.

JUST-AG-2018/JUST-JCOO-AG-2018
Funded by Justice Programme of the European Union