Albania has made progress towards meeting the political criteria for membership and steady progress in the five key priorities for the opening of accession negotiations. One of the recommendations highlights the need to ensure compliance with EU nature legislation.

         The objective of this report is to provide an analysis of the current Albanian laws regarding the species protection objective, in relation to its conformity with EU legislation in this field, namely the Nature Directives and EU Regulations: (i)Law No. 10 006, dated 23/10/2008, On the protection of wild fauna ,(ii)Law No. 41/2013 On some amendments and addenda to the law NO. 10 006, DATED 23/10/2008 “On the protection of wild fauna”, as amended (iii)Law No. 10 253, dated 11/03/2010 On hunting  (iv) Law No. 43/2013 On some amendments to the law NO. 10253, dated 11/03/2010 “On hunting” .

After completion of the compliance assessment, recommendations are made toward the process of reviewing these national laws in order to determine whether there is a need to amend or draft new legal acts of the legislation that regulate the protection of species and hunting. To provide further input to this process, the report identifies examples of relevant legal acts.

        During the assessment, the scope has been broadened to include additional pieces of national legislation that are also relevant for the transposition of the EU obligations in relation to wild fauna protection and hunting:

Laws: (i)Law No. 81/2017, date 4.5.2017, on Protected areas, repealing Law nr. 8906, date 6.6.2002, “On protected areas”, as amended by law nr. 9868, date 4.2.2008 and Law nr.9868, dated 4.2.2008, “On some supplements and changes in law No, 8906, dated 6.6.2002, “On protected areas”; (ii)Law nr. 9587, date 20.7.2006, “On protection of biodiversity”, as amended by Law nr. 37/2013, date 14.2.2013 and Law nr. 68/2014, date 3.7.2014; (iii)Law 68/2014 of 3.7.2014 “On some amendments and changes to the law No. nr. 9587, date 20.7.2006, “On protection of biodiversity”, as amended;

By laws: (i)DCM No.897 dated 21.12.2011“On approval of the rules for the announcement of special conservation areas”(ii)  DCM No. 546 dated 7.7.2010 “On the approval of the list of wild fauna species, subject to hunting”. (iii)DCM No. 866 date 10.12.2014, “On announcing the lists of types of natural habitats, plants, animals, and birds of interest for the European Union”.v