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 NATIONAL	WORK	
PLAN:	ACHIEVING	
DECENT	WORK	IN	
ALBANIA	
 
This document outlines the main areas that CSOs in Albania should intervene 
in order to achieve decent work.  
October	2011
Draft of National Work Plan of Decent Work in Albania 
 
 
Background 
The draft of national work plan has been prepared in response to the discussion with trade unions, NGOs 
and think tanks participating at the national training organized in Albania on 7 July 2011.During the 
discussions, the participants have identified the national priorities for improving the decent work situation 
in Albania. Despite this event, Agenda Institute has conducted a deep research on very materials related 
with decent work in Albania in order to discover its main problems. In order to select the main areas for 
this work plan, Agenda Institute had made also different separate consolations with both the two trade 
unions and NGOs in Albania.  
This work plan has been developed to ensure greater improvement in the fulfillment of decent work 
agenda and to stimulate the implementation of EU social acquis in Albania. This draft plan identifies the 
areas which should be tackled in order to achieve our goal and it outlines the main steps to activate our 
priorities.  
 
The draft of national work plan  
 
1. The development of collective barging in private sector 
The collective agreements are very important document for labour relation; however in Albania these 
agreements function mainly in big companies when they are registered at the National Registration 
Centre and Tax Bodies. In this context, the unions report that effective collective bargaining remained 
difficult, and agreements were hard to enforce. 
In addition, it is important to decrease the minimum number of workers needed to create a union-based 
organization. This would increase the employees’ representation in small companies. 
The unions should continue to support the unification of collective  agreements at the national level based 
on sector which will guarantee comparable working conditions and remuneration for comparable work 
.This will lead to a higher recognition of important role and increase the legitimacy from various 
employee’s and employers’ organisations, and potentially result in the development of industrial relations 
in Albania.  
  
2. The development of social dialogue  
A social dialogue in Albania does not function especially at the enterprise level.   
In order to improve the situation, it is important that the subscription payment to the employee 
organization should no longer be organised only via the employer and the trade unions should provide 
access to workers at all their organisational levels in order to increase the internal level of democracy 
within the unions .Further this will help to improve the public opinion perception.  
In addition, the focus of social dialogue and collective bargaining should not only be on remuneration but 
also on working time reduction and on improvements of working conditions. 
The tripartite social dialogue in Albania is based on the National Labour Council. From the information 
gathered, the council violates its own regulation and the rules of partnerships and the issues discussed in 
this council are formal and not real.  In order to produce changes and to improve the situation, we 
proposed to confer the power of veto to the two trade union confederations in order to prevent that 
decisions directly affecting workers’ rights are taken without the possibility to interfere. 
 
 
3. Legislative Improvements  
I. Bylaws  
It is required that the council of ministers issues soon the bylaws in order to regulate the implementation 
of laws in Albania. 
 
II. Amendment of Labour Code  
The revision of the Labour Code was approved in order to approximate it with the EU legislation. This 
revision was undertaken in collaboration with the ILO experts. The unions had prepared different 
proposals for changing the Labour Code. However, comparing the proposals of both the trade unions with 
the final draft for amending the Albanian Labour Code, it is observed that there are still many articles 
which need to be revised in according to the unions’ proposals to improve and to bring closer the 
Albanian legislation with International standards and EU social acquis.  
A. Prohibit antiunion discrimination by law 
Independent Trade Union of Textile, Garment, and Leather Workers reported that employers in the textile, 
garment, leather, and footwear sectors engaged in antiunion behavior.  Employers threatened 
international relocation if workers unionized. In order to improve the situation, we recommended that it 
should be prohibit antiunion discrimination by law.  
B. Rights to strike  
The right to strike is restricted at civil servants, regardless of their function, they are not allowed to strike. 
The list of “essential services” where strikes are banned exceeds the ILO definition by including workers 
in the prison service. Also, if a strike is considered unlawful, the employer can order strikers to return to 
work within three days or face dismissal. We recommended that changes in these perspectives are 
important in order to bring closer the Albanian legislation with international standards.  
 
 
C. Improve the protection of worker  
The government should improve the system to prevent unfair dismissals. For this reason, we agree with 
the unions that the burden of prove should not lies on the victim but it should be stipulated as a 
responsibility of the employer.  
In addition, it is required to amend the labour code as  the reinstatement can only be ordered for public 
administration employees and not in private sector. It is required that the reinstatement should be added 
also for the private sector. 
Moreover, Articles 141 and 143 should include a provision that despite the respect of the required period 
for firing somebody, the employer has to provide a justified explanation. 
These three changes will help to provide more effective protection of workers’ rights.  
. 
4. Setting up Adequate Institutions 
 
I. Labour Court 
Albanian trade unions report that civil courts are overloaded and it may take around three years to review 
cases of anti-union harassment. In addition, the civil courts lack the competence to deal effectively with 
labour disputes. This is why the unions have continuously demand the creation of the labour court. It is 
crucial that the government starts to establish the Labour courts as described by the Albanian Labour 
Code from 2003 and to ensure the efficient function of special arbitration tribunals so that they deal 
effectively with trade union rights violations. 
II. Labour  Inspectorate  
 
It is recommended the strengthen of state inspectorate authorities by the formation of satisfactory 
conditions at work; increase their cooperation with other inspector authorities, provision of rights trainings, 
creation of effective management and organizational structure.  
In addition, this inspectorate is facing with constant information leakage. In the case of fason industry, the 
factories’ owners are informed before their arrival to their factories. It needs new strategy to improve the 
situation. 
In addition, to make fully function the state inspectorate, it is required the establishment of the 24 local 
offices as there is still only one single local office established in Saranda. 
 
III. Social and Economic Council 
The formation of the “Social and Economic Council”, as independent consultative body and as a forum to 
promote the participation of the civil society in the economic and social life is very important for the 
development of civil dialogue. 
IV. Publication Center  
It is very crucial to increase of the cooperation of the National Publication Center with the trade unions. 
This cooperation will provide real information to unions about company’s financial situation such as the 
yearly profits gained the economic situation etc. In Albania, the companies operate with two or three 
difference normaly .this will help the unions to  
 
 
5. Increase cooperation between actors  
A major deficit which influences the decent work agenda is the lack of collaboration between different 
actors, stakeholders, state institutions, social partners and civil society in Albania.  
I. Government Institutions 
Firstly, the government needs to change its vision that trade unions are insignificant and that they 
can be easily by-passed. The government should thus promote and support the development of 
trade unions by delegating authorities on matters affecting directly or indirectly the workers’ 
interests and by accepting trade unions as partners. In addition, it has to play an active role in 
protecting trade unions from employer organisations’ abuses.  
Secondly, the government should not pass any legislation affecting workers’ rights without firstly 
consulting the National Labour Council. In addition, the government should not amend or 
formulate law without firstly having discussed the draft form of the law with all the groups of 
interested especially with trade unions as legal representative of employee organizations in 
Albania. This recommendation is as a result of huge deficits of the Law on Commercial 
Companies and Trade, especially articles 19, 20, 21 which are related with the function and 
responsibility of employer council. The draft law on Commercial Companies and Trade was never 
discussed in the National Labour Council which is the main structure of national social dialogue in 
Albania. 
Thirdly, it is recommended to the state to enhance the cooperation between institutes acting in 
the field of safety and health at work in order to ensure a system for exchange of information. 
At the end, all the state institutions should cooperate with both the unions and distribute for 
consulting the final draft laws before sending them to adopt in the parliament.  
 
II. Trade Unions 
At the same time, unions should develop specific strategies which aim to increase their 
participation in the society. To demonstrate their relevance to the public, they should go beyond 
the core functions of collective bargaining by dealing with other broader developments. 
To improve the image and public opinion trade unions could try to regularly organise, every three 
months, a “jour fixe” with both the KSSH and BSPSH to show to the media its value added by 
dealing with issues interesting to the broader public including female rights. In addition, it is 
recommended to organise more awareness raising activities. 
More adequate strategies should be formulated in cooperation with other actors such as media, 
civil society, research institutes and universities. For instance, a concrete strategy to attract 
powerful media could be done in close cooperation with the civil society, interest groups, 
employers’ organisations and state institutions. The cooperation could also help increase 
capacities of trade unions. 
To enhance the role of women in the society (in terms of their economic independence, decision 
making, participation) it would be desirable if trade unions and non-governmental organisations 
focusing on women’s rights could cooperate more. 
 
III. Gender pay gab  
Particularly the transition has negatively influenced the economic status of women and limited their 
opportunities to find jobs. This weakened position vis-a vis employers has meant that women are not 
ready to raise any objections or to claim better working conditions, extension of social protection and 
wage increases.  However, Albania does not have statistical date over in order to calculate the gender 
pay gab. This has decreased the possibility to formulate adequate strategies and policies to improve 
women conditions in the Albanian labour market. As a result, it is very important that  the Albanian 
government should support the collective of gender based disaggregated data by age and sex in order to 
calculate the gender pay gab and to capture the gender dimensions of Albanian labour market  .For this 
end, It is required the formation of a database by the National Institute of Statistic ( INSTAT) in order to 
identify the factors producing this gab and to formulate better policies for preventing  this kind of 
discrimination in the labour market. Moreover, the government should improve the information system in 
order to dissemination the official statistics, on regular basis, as an important instrument to increase the 
Labour market Performance. 
 
 
The international actors can provide a crucial assistant to improve the decent work 
situation in Albania. 
 
The European Union 
The future Integration of Albania in the European Union will not be achieved without the compliance with 
social and economic standards of the EU countries. To achieve these standards and to fulfill the decent 
work’s objectives in Albania, EU actors have to concentrate more attention on formulating policies that 
aims at sustainable economic development of the country.  
By implementing the Decent Work Balkan Network project in Albania for the first time experience are 
shared as well as expertise between trade unions and civil society such as NGOs and think tank about 
the sector.  The Union could promote more socio-economic partnerships through supporting socio-
economic research, reporting, cooperation between NGOs and trade union, promote participation in the 
social dialogue. 
In addition, the EU civil society instrument should promote more social observatories of NGOs, think 
tanks and social partners in order to monitor the application of international policies in Albania.  
In the Albanian case, a genuine constructive dialogue at the national level should be supported further as 
the only mean to bring progress in fulfillment of the decent work agenda.  
Further, the union should provide more technical financial assistances in supporting the decent work 
agenda, such as assisting the raise of inspection capacity. 
In addition, the union could assist in the formation of Social Economic Council in accordance with the 
respective experience in the member states.  
The European Union should promote and support the creation of the Labour Court and special arbitration 
tribunals. 
 
 


National Work Plan: Achieving Decent Work in Albania

Ott, Katarina

 1          PRESS RELEASE     l     No. 34     l     Institute of Public Finance   doi: 10.3326/pr.2012.34 
The meaning and purpose of macroeconomic 
and fiscal policy guidelines in Croatia 
 
 
KATARINA OTT, PhD, Institute of Public Finance, Zagreb 
 
 
 
This article aims to clarify the meaning and purpose of macroeconomic and fiscal policy 
guidelines, which are the basis for drawing up and adopting a national budget, to outline the 
generally accepted good practice standards and to briefly comment on the “Proposal of 
Measures and Guidelines for Drawing up a 2012 Croatian Budget”.  
 
 
 
The Croatian Government has published its Proposal of Measures and Guidelines for Drawing up a 
2012 Croatian Budget1, pursuant to which the Ministry of Finance will deliver instructions to other 
ministries and state bodies of the first level of the organisational classification (e.g. Parliament, Office 
of the President, Constitutional Court and government agencies and bureaus), as well as to extra-
budgetary users (such as the Croatian Water Resources Management and Croatia Roads) for the 
preparation of their 2012 budget proposals. Pursuant to these instructions, budgetary and extra-
budgetary users will draw up their budget proposals and submit them to the relevant ministries and 
other state bodies of the first level of the organisational classification for harmonization and delivery 
to the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry of Finance will then reconcile the received budget proposals 
with the estimated revenues and will submit its own 2012 budget proposal, along with projections for 
2013-2014, to the Government. The Government determines the proposals of the budgets and 
financial plans of extra-budgetary users for 2012, as well as projections for 2013-2014, and submits 
them to Parliament for debate. After their adoption, the budget execution process sets in. This time, 
exceptionally, the deadline is set at 1 April (due to the change of Government during the first three 
months in 2012, temporary financing is in effect), but normally, the entire process is completed by 
January 1. 
 
The Guidelines represent a document that shapes the financial destiny of the state in the year to 
which it relates, but also in the years to come. This is why the Croatian Budget Act clearly defines the 
content of the Guidelines. The situation is similar in almost all countries in the world, where the 
Guidelines are issued under different names (pre-budget statement, fiscal strategy, budget strategy, 
budgetary framework, etc.), but with the more or less same content. Although the practices and 
procedures differ from country to country, it is generally accepted as good practice to discuss this 
document in the parliament as well (thus, for example, the US Congress rejected the Obama 
Administration's fiscal policy proposals), and to present a simplified version of the guidelines to the 
public. So far, however, this has not been the practice in Croatia. 
                                                          
1 Vlada RH, 2012. Prijedlog mjera i smjernice za izradu proračna za 2012. godinu [online]. Available from: 
[http://www.vlada.hr/hr/naslovnica/sjednice_i_odluke_vlade_rh/2012/5_sjednica_vlade_republike_hrvatske].  
No. 34 Zagreb February 8, 2012 
 11          PRESS RELEASE     l     No. 34     l     Institute of Public Finance 
The purpose of the Guidelines is to spark off debate on budgetary figures placed in the context of the 
country's economic position, so that everyone knows what can be expected from the budget and what 
the relationship is between the Government's policies and the allocation of budget resources. 
 
The Guidelines must show the Government's perception of the relationship between fiscal policy and 
economic environment, and its budgetary priorities in the following years, but without going into 
details, which the Government will provide in the budget proposal. The Guidelines must reflect the 
Government's initial positions regarding the next year and make clear that the final budget proposal 
can turn out different, because it will have to take into account developments during the formulation 
of the proposal, as well as feedbacks received within the Government, from Parliament, civil society 
organisations and the public. 
  
According to the generally accepted good practice standards2, the Guidelines should lay out: 
 
1. the Government's perspective on the evolution of macroeconomic conditions, including the 
rationale for its basic assumptions about domestic and external macroeconomic indicators 
over the medium term, such as the real GDP growth, composition of its growth, and 
movements in employment, prices, the current account and interest rates; 
2. the Government's clear long-term objectives and economic and fiscal policy intentions for the 
forthcoming budget year and the following two years; the total level of revenue, expenditure, 
deficit/surplus and debt; the role of the fiscal policy in the context of overall macroeconomic 
policy; the sensitivity of budget aggregates to macroeconomic conditions over the medium 
term; and estimates of the net borrowing requirement and assumptions concerning debt-
servicing costs; 
3. strategic measures envisaged for different sectors, providing a perspective on how different 
sectors will fare in terms of budget allocations and how these allocations might be influenced 
by any new government policy measures. This would include aggregate estimates of current 
outlays and investment by sector, information on the different elements of expenditure on a 
functional classification basis (e.g. spending on health care, education and defence) and on an 
economic classification basis (e.g. compensation of employees, subsidies and social welfare 
benefits); an update of the estimates issued in the previous year by sector; and anticipated 
changes in the roles of sectors; 
4. expectations for tax and revenue, taking into account the revenue collections in the previous 
periods and anticipated developments in the economy that might influence revenue 
collections in the coming periods; and 
5. estimated costs of any new policy measures to be undertaken in the coming year, including 
how such measures will affect the budget over the medium term and, possibly, the long term. 
 
It is essential that the guidelines be published on time, so that the Parliament and the public can 
discuss them and come up with suggestions, which can help the Government formulate a budget 
proposal in a more efficient way. The best publication time frame for the guidelines would be April or 
May of a budget year, within the first stage of the budgeting process for the next year. 
 
The Croatian Budget Act3 mainly complies with the generally accepted good practice standards. 
According to this Act, the Ministry of Finance is obliged to draw up economic and fiscal policy 
guidelines for a three-year period and propose them to the Government by the end of May. The 
Government must adopt them by mid-June. According to Article 25 of the said Act, the guidelines 
must contain: 
1. strategic economic and fiscal policy goals;  
2. basic macroeconomic indicators;  
3. basic fiscal policy indicators;  
4. an estimate of revenue and expenditure and receipts and expenses for all levels of the general 
budget; 
                                                          
2 Ramkumar, V. and Shapiro, I. (eds.), 2010. Guide to Transparency in Government Budget Reports: Why are Budget Reports 
Important, and What Should They Include? [online]. Available from: [http://internationalbudget.org/wp-
content/uploads/Guide-to-Transparency-in-Government-Budget-Reports-Why-are-Budget-Reports-Important-and-What-
Should-They-Include-English.pdf]. 
3 Zakon o proračunu, NN 87/08. Available from: [http://narodne-novine.nn.hr/clanci/sluzbeni/340390.html]. 
 111          PRESS RELEASE     l     No. 34     l     Institute of Public Finance 
5. a proposal for the financial plan amount broken down by users of the first level of the 
organisational classification, which includes the financial plan amounts for the previous 
budget year and for the current budget year, as well as a proposal for the financial plan 
amount for the next budget year and for the following two years; and  
6. anticipated changes in public debt and a public debt management strategy. 
 
While the legal framework is satisfactory, the problem lies in the fact that governments in Croatia 
have often failed to comply with the Act, with respect to both the timely issuance of guidelines and 
their mandatory content. No government so far has issued guidelines in mid-June, but only in 
autumn, except last year when they appeared in July. The content of the guidelines has so far been 
more or less in accordance with law, which has made it possible to assess whether they are credible or 
not. However, the Guidelines from July 20114 were an exception, as they did not contain (for election 
purposes?) a great number of tables with actual data items and levels of the organisational 
classification, which were included in all the previous guidelines. Therefore, it was impossible to see 
how the planned spending cuts would be implemented. These guidelines did not even include “a 
proposal for the financial plan amount by users of the first level of the organisational classification, 
consisting of the financial plan amount for the previous budget year and for the current budget year, 
as well as a proposal for the financial plan amount for the next budget year and for the following two 
years“, so that it was impossible to establish how much particular budget users spent in 2010 and how 
much they were expected to spend in the 2011-14 period. 
 
Despite being issued in a timely manner, the latest January 2012 Guidelines are incomplete. Instead of 
detailed tables they are supposed to include pursuant to the Budget Act, there is only one two-row 
table of expenditure (total expenditure and expenditure as a percent of GDP)! 
 
Given the absence of actual data tables, it is impossible to assess the feasibility of goals set out in the 
descriptive part of the Guidelines. Those interested, which should be all of us, can only discuss such 
issues as the baby food definition or a potential increase vs. decrease in net wages. At the same time, it 
is not clear why the estimated growth of revenues from corporate income tax or personal income tax 
is going to be exactly 35% or 21% respectively, relative to the previous year. These estimates would 
probably be clearer if not only the budget plan, but also its outturns for 2011 were presented, which is 
unfortunately not the case. 
 
It is even more difficult to understand how the economic growth would be achieved on the basis of a 
boost in gross investment of public enterprises5, knowing that the net deficit accumulated by these 
enterprises, i.e. companies of special national interest, totalled 3.5 billion kuna in 2009. Owing to the 
previous Government's decision, providing that these companies' business reports are no more 
submitted to Parliament, those interested must seek up-to-date information on the websites of the 
companies, the Fina and Zagreb Stock Exchange. Based on such information it can be concluded that 
in 2010, the companies recorded a net surplus of 2-3 billion kuna, primarily owing to HEP (Croatian 
Electricity Company) and INA. It is therefore questionable whether they would be able to „generate a 
minimum increase of 8 billion kuna in investments relative to 2011.“ As the estimates of GDP growth 
in 2012 are mainly based on the growth of public sector investments, and a projection of expenditure 
cuts has not been elaborated, it would be good to wait for a budget proposal before drawing any 
conclusions to this effect. 
 
One should hope that, after these Guidelines, prepared, under the circumstances, at such short 
notice, this government will be the first in the history of Croatia to pleasantly surprise the public by 
issuing high-quality macroeconomic and fiscal policy guidelines for the 2013-15 period in mid-June 
2012, providing a brief explanation of these guidelines for citizens and submitting them to Parliament. 
 
By sticking to the time schedule laid down in the Budget Act, as well as to the content of all budgetary 
documents (economic and fiscal policy guidelines, the Government' budget proposal, the voted 
budget, intra-year reports, mid-year and year-end reports and the state audit report), while at the
                                                          
4 Ott, K., 2011. “Commentary on the Croatian Government’s Economic and Fiscal Policy Guidelines for the 2011-14 Period” 
[online]. Press Release, No. 30. Available from: [http://www.ijf.hr/eng/releases/30.pdf]. 
5 Bajo, A., 2010. “Companies of Special National Interest in Croatia” [online]. Press Release, No. 30. Available from: 
[http://www.ijf.hr/eng/releases/25.pdf]. 
 1v          PRESS RELEASE     l     No. 34     l     Institute of Public Finance 
same time publishing simplified versions of these documents for citizens, the Government would 
significantly improve fiscal transparency. Higher fiscal transparency might help in curbing 
corruption, increasing public sector efficiency, defining and implementing more effective public 
policies, attracting investment and boosting confidence in the Government. In this way Croatia would 
finally improve its Open Budget Index 6score and move to the group of countries with much more 
transparent budgets. After all, Croatia has joined the Open Government Partnership7, and hopes are 
that it will fulfil the commitments assumed under that Partnership in all its activities, not just to 
promote its international image but to consolidate its public sector, stimulate economic growth and 
development and thus improve the well-being of its citizens. 
                                                          
6 Urban, I. and Bađun, M., 2010. “Croatia's Score on Open Budget Index 2010” [online]. Press Release, No. 26. Available from: 
[http://www.ijf.hr/eng/releases/26.pdf]. 
7 Vlada RH, Ured za udruge. Available from: [http://www.uzuvrh.hr/stranica.aspx?pageID=198]. 


Press release no. 34. The meaning and purpose of macroeconomic and fiscal policy guidelines in Croatia

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