On Thursday, 22 December 2022, the second session for Working Group I “Judiciary and Fundamental Rights”on the topic “Property Rights focusing on Chapter 23” was held in Tirana. This activity is organized under the National Convention on European Integration, which is implemented by the EMA and Slovak Foreign Policy Association (SFPA) with financial support from SlovakAid.
The meeting started with an opening speech by Gledis Gjipali, Executive Director of EMA, who spoke about the importance of Working Group I, as Chapter 23 is not only one of the most complex of the EU acquis, but also essential for achieving European standards. He emphasized that these consultations with interested parties and stakeholders are necessary for the integration process to bring real and positive changes that will find applicability.
Then Andrej Leontiev, representative from the law firm Taylor Wessing, Bratislava, who together with his colleague Kristina Kesnerova were invited as experts, took the floor. Together, Leontiev and Kesnerova gave an overview of the property registration system in Slovakia, the changes brought about by EU integration and ‘a how to’ on the adjustments. For countries emerging from communist regimes such as Albania, Slovakia and many others, the recognition and registration of ownership present some challenges, especially the creation of public and electronic registers in EU standards. In this light, learning experiences from Slovakia such as how to apply the principle of publicity, electronic cadaster registers easily accessible to the public at no cost, and methods of guaranteeing the authenticity of data in public registers, are of particular importance. Furthermore, the presentation of Slovak experts addressed the notion of transparency in the EU, as a policy objective for the general public interest and publicity as one of the tools to achieve it. The publicity of property data is a way to ensure and protect the ownership titles in practice from possible illegal situations. However, here Leontiev stops to mention some problems that public electronic registers can bring in relation to the provisions on the protection of personal data (GDPR), administrative costs for system maintenance, language barriers, adaptation of systems to changes in legislation, etc.
The activity then proceeded with the presentation of Prof. Assoc. Denard Veshi, who analyzed the impact that European private law has and will have more concretely now due to the start of the negotiation process, in the Albanian legislation. Veshi talked about the importance and innovations of Regulation (EU) 650/2012 on Succession [of properties], its impact on the legislation of member and non-member states. Then he went over the changes of the relevant articles in the Civil Code of the Republic of Albania on succession rights, comparing it with those of neighboring countries, already members of the EU. Veshi touched upon the specific changes brought to the Albanian legislation, the influence of Reg. (EU) 650/2012 in the legal reform of 2013 and the law for notaries in 2018. Furthermore, the professor reflected on some conflicts between the current Albanian law on succession and the European regulation, as well as the necessary instruments in the Albanian legal system that are needed to implement Reg. 650/2012 when time comes.
