The Balkan Agenda

Current Projects

Albania’s Relationship with Neighbors: the current account and the prospects for the future
2010 - 2011

A two years project aims to debate the Albania’s current relationship with neighboring countries: Serbia, Montenegro, Kosova, FYROM Macedonia, Greece and Italy. Further the AIIS and its regional partners will provide Research report/ policy papers on security foreign policy trade and economics issues between Albania and its neighbors .
This is a joint project with Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

“One Year After NATO Membership: The Domestic and Foreign Policy Balance Sheets”, Regional Conference, 31 March 2010
2010

Albania’s NATO accession in April 2009 was undeniably a historical event, considering that Albania is a former Warsaw Pact country and saw one of the harshest, most isolationist rules in the world during the Cold War period. In fact, NATO accession in 2009 saw much government mobilization to celebrate what symbolizes Albania’s definite orientation towards integrationist trends. The second part of the conference was devoted to debate the effects on NATO enlargement in the Balkans from the security and stability perspectives.
The project is supported by NATO Public Diplomacy and US Embassy in Tirana.

Albania-Kosova Relations: Centrality of Economics
2010

The purpose of the research and conference in Tirana was to debate the current relationship between Albania and Kosova on the economic realm and provide recommendations for relevant institutions in both states.
A joint project with Friedrich Ebert Foundation

Completed Projects

Desecuritization through Integration: A State Functionality Perspective
2009

The security landscape of the Western Balkans has been significantly altered by the emergence of the new state of Kosovo, NATO expansion, as well as developments within the Stabilisation and Association framework the region is in. The link between integration processes (in the domestic, regional and European level), state functionality and desecuritisation of the region’s states and societies is clear. The context that spurred international actor focus on state building, accompanied by an international security and peace-keeping presence in the region, has now changed however. The global economic crisis is far from being a negligible factor too. The effects of the crisis have begun to be felt in the region later than in other parts of the world. Economic downfall is a known factor in security concerns however. The effects of the world economic crisis in state functionality can no longer be ignored in the regional security and development analysis.
Such significant changes call for a detailed re-assessment of the integration-state functionality-security dynamic at the domestic and regional level. The purpose of the joint project – research and workshop,- was to observe the policy implications at the regional level in the above mentioned context and to produce a reassessment of state functionality as the centrality of integration processes and desecuritisation, in the Western Balkan.
Joint workshop of the AIIS, The Austrian Ministry of Defence and the PfP Consortium of Defence Academies and Securities Studies Institutes Group

Desecuritization and resecuritization of Western Balkan inter/intrastate relations
2009

Participants came from a wide range of fields and consisted of many internally, regionally and locally well-known experts and practitioners. Local participants were representatives of lawmakers and government, political parties, international organizations and diplomatic bodies, non-profit organizations and academic institutions. In the event were presented the achievements and challenges of NATO in its 60th anniversary.
Regional Conference, Funded by NATO Public Division