Investment Council puts forward recommendations for the improvement of the public consultation process
- June 3, 2022
Tirana, 1 June 2022 / Chaired by the Minister of Finance and Economy, Ms Delina Ibrahimaj, the Investment Council (IC) held a plenary meeting to discuss the private sector’s concerns and recommendations for the improvement of the public consultation process. The meeting was held in a hybrid format, and it was attended by all IC members and a number of observers representing the public and private sector and development agencies.
Minister Ibrahimaj highlighted the importance of the public consultation process and its mechanisms for adopting meaningful legislation and integrating transparency in the process while providing the opportunity to the groups of interest and the public to contribute to the implementation of reforms. To this end, she highlighted as good practice the recent consultation of laws and bylaws package concerning the Fiscalization Reform. Minister Ibrahimaj expressed commitment to the process as evidenced through recent MFE’s consultations with the business community, while also emphasised the need for an improved business associations’ contribution through analytical comments for draft laws launched for public consultation through the electronic register or other instruments.
IC Secretariat delivered a brief presentation with key findings and proposals related to the notification and public notification of draft acts from the business perspective, prepared in close cooperation with relevant business associations. The rationale was elaborated on the premises of legal and regulatory analysis, feedback from direct meetings with 37 partners and findings of the questionnaire conducted with 26 prominent business associations. The proposed recommendations tackle several aspects such as political commitment, legal changes, and awareness about the technology instruments.
During the open discussion session, the business representatives from AmCham, Producers Associations, Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Tirana, FIAA, and UCCIAL expressed their concerns about the current performance of the public consultation process and put forward several suggestions such as:
- improvement of the grievance mechanism
- respecting consultation timelines provided in the law
- provision of the adequate feedback to business comments
- making use of more user-friendly dialogue instruments in due time and place
- increasing the consultation base by including also draft bylaws
- monitoring consultation at both central and local level
- better identification of the business stakeholders and assessment of their organisational capacities.
At the end of the discussions, Minister Delina Ibrahimaj thanked all the participants for their contribution and invited them to come forward with more analytical suggestions and recommendations while effectively taking more advantage of the public consultation instruments (such as the Electronic Registry of Public Notification and Public Consultation) to better formalise the submission of their concerns.
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To view pictures from the event, click here.
Full materials of this meeting will be published in the next few weeks in our dedicated section https://www.investment.com.al/ic-meetings/.