The procedural record and the verification standard: a legal reading of two letters from Brussels and the institutional response from Tirana

by Renada Bici, Legal Desk

On May 7, 2026, a letter signed by David McAllister, in his capacities as Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs and Vice-President of the European People’s Party, was addressed to Marta Kos, Commissioner for Enlargement. The letter relayed an account submitted on April 30 by Jorida Tabaku, Albanian Member of Parliament and Co-Chair of the National Council of European Integration. It posed two formal questions to the Commission regarding cooperation between the Albanian government and parliamentary opposition, and regarding the Commission’s guarantees for the opposition’s exercise of its control functions.

The letter is a procedural act. It engages the institutional machinery of EU enlargement oversight on the basis of a single Albanian parliamentarian’s account. Both the substantive claims it transmits and the procedural standard under which it was transmitted now require examination against the institutional record. That record is twofold: the procedural record of the Albanian Parliament, and the collective institutional position articulated by the European Union’s diplomatic presence in Albania on May 9.

The procedural record of the Albanian Parliament

The Tabaku account, as relayed by McAllister, makes four substantive claims: that the opposition, civil society, and the public are excluded from central information flows on EU accession; that legislative proposals are not shared with the Parliament in a timely or comprehensive manner; that the Council of Ministers is failing its constitutional obligation to inform the Parliament on accession negotiations, EU funds, and integration-related reforms; and that the cumulative effect produces an executive-driven integration process incompatible with constitutional oversight.

Each claim is testable against the procedural record. The record is the documented activity of the Assembly during the legislature, available through plenary minutes, Conference of Chairmen decisions, and the Assembly’s protocol register.

Parliamentary inquiry commissions. Article 5 of Law No. 8891/2002 “On the Organization and Functioning of Parliamentary Inquiry Commissions” establishes the cumulative material conditions for the institution of an inquiry commission, beyond the formal threshold of one-quarter of deputies. The Constitutional Court’s jurisprudence has interpreted these conditions as requiring a defined object of inquiry, sufficient indicia of legal violation by state authorities, and respect for the principle of separation of powers, including non-interference with matters under judicial review.

Five inquiry commission requests were refused during the legislature. The procedural grounds in each case are documented.

The request of October 13, 2025, on alleged Albanian official conduct in relation to former FBI agent Charles McGonigal, was found to rest on media reporting and political assertion rather than on documented indicia, and to concern matters adjudicated by a foreign jurisdiction, placing them outside the Assembly’s competence.

The request of October 13, 2025, on alleged misuse of state administration in the May 11, 2025 elections, was found to overlap with the mandate of an existing Special Commission on Electoral Reform, and to rest on political claims not confirmed by competent institutions, including international observers.

The request of October 28, 2025, on the administration of IPARD II funds, was found to concern matters under active OLAF investigation, subject to parallel review by Albanian judicial organs, and addressed through coordinated corrective measures with the European Commission. The institution of a parallel parliamentary inquiry was assessed as creating procedural duplication with the international audit mechanism.

The request of April 1, 2026, on the Albanian Road Authority’s infrastructure investments, was found to lack a defined object of inquiry under the proportionality principle established by the Constitutional Court, and to overlap with matters under criminal review.

The request of April 3, 2026, on the National Information Society Agency, was found to concern matters under active investigation by judicial organs, and to lack a delimited investigative target consistent with the constitutional prohibition on general inquiries.

These are reasoned procedural refusals grounded in Law No. 8891/2002 and in the Constitutional Court’s jurisprudence on the institutional limits of parliamentary inquiry. A substantive challenge to them would require engagement with the specific reasoning in each case and a demonstration of where the procedural defense fails. The Tabaku account, as transmitted, does not undertake this engagement.

Interpellations. Article 80 of the Constitution and Article 96 of the Rules of Procedure establish interpellation as an instrument of parliamentary control directed to the political responsibility of the Council of Ministers. Article 89(3) of the Rules of Procedure authorizes the President of the Assembly to refuse requests that fall outside the constitutional scope of the instrument.

The record shows sixteen interpellations and question sessions granted and held during the period, addressing the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, and ministers of Interior, Education, Justice, Finance, Health, Agriculture, Tourism, and others. Twenty further requests are pending or scheduled. Seven requests were refused under Article 89(3), each on a stated procedural ground.

The refusal of the September 29, 2025 request to the Prime Minister, on alleged organized crime infiltration of the economy through public licensing, was grounded in the absence of a concrete act or decision of the Council of Ministers within the scope of Article 80, the request resting on media investigation rather than executive action.

The refusal of the November 3, 2025 request to Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku, on procurement procedures for the Llogara tunnel, was grounded in the existence of active criminal proceedings before the Special Prosecution Against Corruption and Organized Crime concerning the same procurement, and on the constitutional separation of powers prohibiting parliamentary interference with judicial investigation.

The refusal of the December 2, 2025 request to the Prime Minister, regarding the Balluku investigation, was grounded in the pendency of the matter before the Constitutional Court, the competent organ for final assessment.

The refusal of the December 16, 2025 request to the Minister of Agriculture, on IPARD funds, was grounded in active criminal proceedings on the same matter.

The refusal of the January 19, 2026 request to the Prime Minister, on SPAK investigations of the AKSH, was grounded in the same constitutional principle of non-interference with active criminal proceedings.

The refusal of the March 18, 2026 request to the Prime Minister, on the suspension of an Air Albania license, was grounded in the matter falling outside the political responsibility of the Council of Ministers under Article 80, concerning instead the specific juridical-financial situation of a commercial entity.

The refusal of the April 3, 2026 request to the Prime Minister, on the National Council of Territory and Water decision-making, was grounded in the absence of a concrete Council of Ministers act within the scope of interpellation, the request resting on external sources.

Each refusal cites the constitutional or rules-of-procedure ground on which it rests. The pattern is consistent: where the requested interpellation concerned matters under active judicial review, the refusal invoked the separation of powers; where it concerned matters outside the political responsibility of the Council of Ministers, the refusal invoked Article 89(3). The record does not show selective refusal. It shows the application of the same procedural standards to multiple requests, with seven refusals across a period in which sixteen requests were granted.

Debate motions. Article 98 of the Rules of Procedure conditions the holding of a debate motion on a defined single subject and on accompaniment by a draft resolution. Five motion requests were considered during the period. Two were granted and held or scheduled. Three were refused, on grounds including absence of a draft resolution, generality of object exceeding the single-subject requirement of Article 98, exhaustion of the matter by prior parliamentary resolutions, and procedural inconsistency between the cited legal basis and the requested action. One additional motion was granted but could not be held due to disruption of the plenary session.

Plenary functioning. The Democratic Party parliamentary group document asserts that of 26 plenary sessions, only 10 concluded normally. The Assembly’s records show 29 plenary sessions in the period under review, of which 8 were interrupted and proceeded directly to vote. Each interruption is documented with a stated cause: blocking actions, use of pyrotechnic materials within the chamber, damage to microphones, sustained use of language outside parliamentary standards, physical blocking of the speaker’s podium.

The interpretation of the Rules of Procedure invoked by the parliamentary group document, suggesting that the President of the Assembly was obligated to suspend rather than proceed to vote in conditions of disorder, requires examination. The rule cited contemplates a situation in which disorder arises beyond the control of all parliamentary actors. A reading under which the rule could be invoked by the group originating the disorder, to suspend the session at the moment of its choosing, would produce a result diametrically opposed to the purpose of the rule. The standard interpretive principle applicable to procedural rules is that they are to be read in accordance with their purpose, not in a manner that authorizes their instrumental use to obstruct the proceedings they govern.

The discussion-time statistics for the period September 2025 to March 31, 2026, are 388 interventions totaling 63 hours for the Socialist Party group and 362 interventions totaling 60 hours for the Democratic Party group. The differential between majority and opposition floor time is approximately four percent.

Disciplinary measures. The Assembly’s disciplinary record shows eleven decisions on exclusion measures, affecting fourteen deputies. In three cases, the sanction imposed matched the sanction requested. In four cases, the sanction imposed was lower than the sanction requested. In four cases, the requested sanction was refused. The deputies receiving repeat sanctions include four from the Democratic Party group and one from a related opposition formation. The grounds for the sanctions imposed are documented and include disruption of the chamber during the Prime Minister’s program presentation, repeated aggressive interventions and insulting language toward the President of the Assembly, denigrating declarations toward ambassadors, use of unparliamentary language, use of pyrotechnic materials within the chamber including impact on guard personnel and damage to microphones, blocking of the speaker’s podium, and language outside the bounds of parliamentary conduct.

Information requests. The Assembly’s protocol register shows 297 information requests submitted by deputies during the legislature, 169 of them from opposition deputies. One deputy alone accounts for 56 of those requests. The Tabaku account’s claim of 21 unanswered queries, against the documented volume and distribution of requests, does not on the procedural record demonstrate a structural impediment to the exercise of parliamentary control.

The cumulative procedural record diverges substantially from the Tabaku account in its central particulars. It does not show a Parliament from which the opposition is excluded from democratic participation. It shows a Parliament in which the opposition has used its instruments extensively, has had specific requests granted on the merits and specific requests refused on stated procedural grounds, has held floor time at near-parity with the majority, and has been subject to disciplinary measures applied with documented evenhandedness, including four cases in which sanctions requested by the majority against opposition deputies were refused.

The standard of verification incumbent on the office of AFET Chair

This brings the analysis to the second matter raised by the McAllister letter: the procedural standard under which it was transmitted.

The Chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament is an office of institutional weight in the enlargement architecture. The procedural standard governing its formal communications to the Commission is not codified as a single rule, but it is implicit in the office’s function. A letter from the AFET Chair to the Enlargement Commissioner, raising formal questions about the state of democracy in a candidate country at a sensitive phase of the accession process, is presumed to rest on verified information. The verification function is the precondition for the institutional weight the office carries.

The May 7 letter does not indicate on its face that any verification was undertaken. It relays Tabaku’s account in summary form. It does not reference consultation with the EU Delegation in Albania, which is the Commission’s primary instrument for monitoring exactly the questions raised. It does not reference consultation with the EU member state ambassadors accredited to Albania, whose collective assessment of the institutional environment in the country is the standing institutional position of the Union on the ground. It does not reference any independent testing of Tabaku’s factual claims against the Albanian Parliament’s procedural record, which is publicly available through the Assembly’s official documentation.

The European People’s Party transmission channel raises a separate procedural question. McAllister holds the office of Vice-President of the EPP. Tabaku represents the EPP-affiliated formation in Albania. The transmission of a partisan complaint through a party-family channel does not itself violate procedural norms, but it engages the principle that the institutional standard governing an AFET Chair’s communications to the Commission must be applied uniformly regardless of party affiliation. The verification standard cannot be lower for accounts transmitted through one party family than for accounts that would be transmitted through another. The institutional act, once executed, becomes part of the Commission’s procedural record and is read by third parties without reference to the party-family context of its origin.

The institutional position of May 9

The procedural question of verification, hypothetical at the moment of the letter’s transmission on May 7, was given concrete content by events two days later.

On May 9, on Europe Day, Sali Berisha, Chairman of the Democratic Party of Albania, opened a livestream and made the following statements regarding Silvio Gonzato, Ambassador of the European Union to Albania: that the Ambassador behaves as if he were the ambassador of Prime Minister Edi Rama; that the Ambassador has transmitted to Brussels “the most untruthful fabrications” against the Albanian opposition; and that the Ambassador has “completely unified” with the Prime Minister.

The institutional response from the European Union was articulated on the same day on two layers.

The diplomatic corps of EU member states accredited to Albania, through its Dean, Stavros Avgoustides, Ambassador of the Republic of Cyprus, issued a Joint Statement of EU Ambassadors accredited to Albania, expressing full confidence in the EU Ambassador and his team and reaffirming confidence in their professionalism, integrity, and dedicated service. The statement was issued, in the formulation transmitted by the Dean, “in light of the unjustified and unacceptable criticism against the European Union and its representatives.”

A spokesperson of the European Union institutions in Brussels followed with a statement: “Such statements are unacceptable. The EU strongly condemns the personal attacks made on Europe Day against the European Union Ambassador in Albania. The EU Ambassador has at all times acted with full professionalism and integrity. We have full confidence in him and his work.”

These statements constitute the formally articulated institutional position of the European Union’s diplomatic presence in Albania, expressed through the Dean of the member state diplomatic corps and reinforced by the Brussels institutions. The position assesses the Ambassador and the Mission as operating with full professionalism and integrity, and treats challenges to that assessment as unacceptable.

The procedural inconsistency

The May 9 institutional position has procedural implications for the McAllister letter of May 7.

The premise of the May 7 letter, implicit in its transmission, is that the EU’s institutional reporting from Tirana is either incomplete or insufficient, and that a correction is required from a single Albanian opposition parliamentarian. If the Commission’s existing reporting from its Mission in Albania were assessed by the AFET Chair as adequate, the letter would be unnecessary, because the Commission would already be in possession of the information required to address the matters raised. The act of transmission, as a procedural matter, expresses a judgment that the Mission’s reporting requires supplementation from an external source.

The May 9 institutional position, articulated by the Mission and by the entire member state diplomatic corps accredited to Albania, expresses the contrary judgment: that the Mission operates with full professionalism and integrity, and that its institutional reading of the country is authoritative.

These two positions cannot both be held by the office of AFET Chair without a procedural reconciliation. Either the Mission’s institutional reading is reliable, in which case the May 7 letter requires explanation as to why its premise was the contrary; or the Mission’s institutional reading is unreliable, in which case the AFET Chair holds a position at variance with the collective assessment of the EU’s diplomatic presence in Albania, and is procedurally obligated to articulate the grounds on which he holds that position.

This is not a political question. It is a procedural one. The institutional integrity of the office of AFET Chair, in its relations with the Enlargement Commissioner, with the Commission’s Mission in candidate countries, and with the member state diplomatic corps accredited to those countries, depends on the consistency of the procedural standards under which the office’s communications are issued.

What follows procedurally

Two procedural steps follow from the record as it now stands.

The first is the response of Commissioner Kos. Under the standard institutional practice governing exchanges between the AFET Chair and the Enlargement Commissioner, a substantive response is owed. The procedurally rigorous response would test the factual claims relayed in the McAllister letter against the verified institutional record, including the procedural record of the Albanian Parliament summarized above and the standing institutional reporting of the Commission’s Mission in Tirana. It would distinguish between matters of legitimate political disagreement within the Albanian institutional framework, which remain ongoing, and claims of structural exclusion from democratic participation, which the procedural record does not sustain in the form they were transmitted.

The second is the procedural clarification owed by the office of AFET Chair. The May 7 letter has raised, by its existence and by the events of May 9, a question concerning the verification standards under which the office issues formal communications to the Commission. The procedurally appropriate response is for the office to clarify what verification was undertaken before the May 7 transmission, what consultation with the EU Mission in Albania preceded the letter, and how the position implicit in the letter is to be reconciled with the institutional position articulated by the Mission and the member state diplomatic corps on May 9.

Both procedural steps are matters of institutional regularity, not of political alignment. The integrity of the European Parliament’s engagement with the Enlargement process, and of the Commission’s engagement with the institutional environment of candidate countries, depends on the procedural standards being applied uniformly and on inconsistencies in their application being clarified when they arise.

The procedural record of the Albanian Parliament is on the table. The institutional position of the European Union’s diplomatic presence in Albania, as articulated on May 9, is on the table. The procedural standard under which the May 7 letter was issued is the matter that remains to be clarified.

The matter remains to be clarified.

Renada Bici is a Tirana-based lawyer practicing in civil, criminal, and administrative law. She holds a law degree from the University of Tirana and has experience in both private legal practice and public administration. She writes for the Tirana Examiner Legal Desk.