By Zef Preçi
Tirana Times, 09 February 2026 – The campaign that Albania’s ruling Socialist Party appears to be preparing against the Special Anti Corruption Structure (SPAK) raises serious concerns not only about the future of the rule of law in the country but also about the credibility of Albania’s European Union accession process.
Just a week ago Serbia’s National Assembly adopted amendments to key judicial laws proposed by a ruling Serbian Progressive Party SNS lawmaker. These changes were rushed through parliament without public consultation and according to critics in Serbia significantly weaken judicial independence. They curtail the powers of the High Prosecutorial Council and require the return of more than half of the prosecutors currently working at Serbia’s Office of the Prosecutor for Organized Crime TOK to their previous posts effectively paralysing the institution.
Following the announcement of these amendments TOK itself warned publicly that their implementation would severely obstruct its work and completely block proceedings in the most complex and sensitive criminal cases. In my view the analogy between this development and the mounting pressure being exerted by Albania’s governing majority against SPAK is too striking to ignore.
There are notable structural similarities between the two countries. In Serbia the SNS has been in power since 2012 while in Albania the Socialist Party has governed since 2013. Both governments have therefore exercised uninterrupted power for more than a decade. Both countries are also formally engaged in the EU integration process which entails close monitoring by the European Commission particularly in the areas of rule of law judicial independence and anti corruption enforcement.
Serbia’s TOK was established as early as 2002 and especially after 2016 has undergone reforms supported by the EU. Much like Albania’s SPAK it is tasked with investigating organised crime and high level corruption. The recent Serbian parliamentary decision to limit TOK’s human resources inevitably undermines its ability to fulfil its constitutional mandate. In Albania by contrast there has been remarkably little public debate about the financial and staffing constraints imposed by parliament on SPAK.
Although the Albanian Constitution requires that SPAK be composed of at least ten prosecutors the current workload would strain even the seventeen prosecutors currently in office. Yet repeated public attacks by Prime Minister Edi Rama focusing on their allegedly high salaries have served primarily to fuel public resentment against SPAK prosecutors. This rhetoric ignores a basic fact SPAK handles only a very limited number of cases those involving senior officials and organised crime and bears no responsibility for the massive backlog and systemic delays affecting Albania’s wider judicial system. These nuances however are rarely perceived by the average citizen.
The political backlash against special prosecutors in both countries has intensified precisely because these institutions have dared to investigate senior officials. In Albania SPAK has several high profile cases involving top officials including the recent criminal investigation of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure. In Serbia TOK last year brought charges against former SNS ministers in connection with corruption allegations linked to the Belgrade Budapest railway reconstruction and also accused a sitting minister of document forgery and abuse of office.
In Serbia these indictments triggered a broad media campaign against TOK by pro government outlets accompanied by harsh criticism from top political leaders including President Aleksandar Vučić. A remarkably similar pattern is now visible in Albania where coordinated attacks on SPAK have come not only from the ruling majority but also from segments of the opposition alongside direct and repeated criticism of the judiciary by Prime Minister Rama himself. His recent claim that the Constitutional Court failed to find the strength to prevent what he described as the government being taken hostage illustrates the depth of executive hostility toward judicial oversight.
According to media reports the controversial judicial amendments in Serbia have caused serious concern in Brussels. The European Commission has reportedly warned that these changes may represent a significant step backward in Serbia’s EU accession path. Notably the formal proposer of the Serbian amendments framed them as the first step toward returning a captured judiciary to the state and the people freeing it from allegedly alien centres under foreign control. Such rhetoric bears an unsettling resemblance to narratives increasingly echoed by Albania’s governing majority.
In Albania the exact mechanism through which the ruling party and Prime Minister Rama intend to restrict SPAK’s activity remains unclear. What is clear however is that both the government of the prosecution system and the government of the judiciary the High Prosecutorial Council and the High Judicial Council are effectively under political control. Together with the Constitutional Court they appear poised to play a central role in what increasingly resembles a coordinated campaign against SPAK.
Equally troubling is the Socialist majority’s silent refusal over the past two years to even consider SPAK leadership’s repeated request for constitutional amendments allowing its prosecutors to seek a second mandate. This request has been publicly supported by senior officials of the United States State Department yet it has gone unanswered by Albania’s parliament.
The recent demand by the EU Commissioner for Justice Michael McGrath to suspend and withdraw Serbia’s controversial judicial amendments alongside the forthcoming decisions of Albania’s Constitutional Court and parliament regarding the Balluku case will constitute a crucial test. They will measure not only the resilience of the rule of law in both countries but also the sincerity and credibility of their respective commitments to European integration.
In this context the analogy between Serbia and Albania is no longer merely disturbing. It is a warning.
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