Albania

The law on local self-government, Law 139/2015, lists what the municipalities do and allows further duties “only on the basis of law”. The national government may also set “specific standards and norms” for the tasks they already hold. In practice, most levers that shape a smart city sit with national agencies.

• Broadband and mobile: AKEP regulates and private operators build; there are 281 authorised fixed operators. A municipality grants rights of way and permits for masts.
• Public transport: local buses are a municipal duty, run as private concessions. In Shkodër the operators get no subsidy and must cover their costs from fares.
• Policing and cameras: the State Police answer to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Municipalities keep civil protection, the fire service and administrative offences. The cities for the national camera programme were chosen with the police by crime level.
• Energy: grids and regulation are national. Since 2021 every municipality must draw up a local energy-efficiency action plan, and a new electricity law in force since July 2026 creates civic energy communities.
• Planning: municipalities plan their land and issue most permits, all through the national e-Leje system. Complex and strategic permits go to the National Territorial Council, which the Prime Minister chairs.
• Open data: a 2022 law binds public bodies. Of the 312 institutions asked by the data-protection commissioner, 177 had published a list of open datasets, and the EU’s 2025 maturity review rated local open-data initiatives as “Few”.
• Online services and e-ID: AKSHI, the National Agency for the Information Society, builds e-Albania and writes software for municipalities only at their request. In its 2025 report the Commission asked Albania to adopt an e-ID law in line with the EU’s digital-identity rules.
• Procurement: AKSHI buys IT for central government. An exceptional Albanian law lets companies from the United Arab Emirates bypass standard tenders.
• Waste: collection is a municipal duty by law, but the state waste company AKEM is to become the national operator in 2026, with municipalities as its clients.

That arrangement helps explain the speed. Since 2017 one agency has run e-government, and no town hall had to agree to the move online. It also explains the limits. A mayor cannot choose the cameras on the town’s streets, and a lever can be withdrawn. A town that holds the bus lever but has no subsidy budget cannot buy the buses it plans.

Levers have been withdrawn. On 11 July 2025 Edi Rama, the Prime Minister, told the mayors that their deputy mayors and directors had to go by the following Monday; resignations followed. The Commission said the wave “raises concerns”, including under the European Charter of Local Self-Government. On 11 September 2026 Rama made Ervin Demo, until then minister of state for local government, minister of internal affairs, and abolished the local-government post. Local affairs are to be folded into the Interior Ministry, as they once were, so one minister now answers for both the police and the municipalities.

From our library

Albania 2025 Report (European Commission, SWD(2025) 750)

The Commission’s annual assessment, including local self-government, digital policy and climate.

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Around them sit a few watchers and many donors. KLSH audits the portal, SPAK, the special anti-corruption prosecution, pursues the procurement, and BIRN, a network of investigative reporters, reports on both. The National Association of Municipalities works for local autonomy. Much of the money for urban plans comes from abroad: the EIB for Shkodër’s mobility plan, Interreg for Durrës, the World Bank for municipal e-services.

Rama’s Socialist Party (PS) won 53.2% at the election of May 2025 and governs alone; his fourth government took office that September. In September 2025 Diella, a chatbot on e-Albania, was named Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence and Public Procurement. The Commission calls it “a virtual entity” under the Prime Minister’s authority.

The Prime Minister’s office says Diella “does not make administrative or legal decisions autonomously”. In August 2026 the head of the Public Procurement Agency said an AI procurement system was still in preparation; its terms of reference had just been finished.

From our library

Albania's AI Turn: A Surveillance State Without Oversight? (Transitions, 13 Apr 2026)

How the police camera programme was bought, and what oversight it lacks.

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The agency’s own leadership is under investigation. On 16 December 2025 SPAK placed AKSHI’s director, Mirlinda Karçanaj, and her deputy under house arrest in a case against eight people. Prosecutors say businessmen forced bidders to drop complaints about AKSHI tenders. In April 2026, with Karçanaj by then the former director, they seized more than €40m of assets. In May 2026 the Supreme Court replaced her house arrest with a duty to report to the judicial police twice a month and a travel ban; no one has been tried. A 2023 performance audit by KLSH had already found the measures taken insufficient, AKSHI 40% understaffed and the national Digital Agenda drafted by AKSHI alone.

The World Bank finances the next step. Its GovTech programme began in 2023 and grew to $145m when $80m more was approved in March 2025, for local services and AI-assisted procurement. By 2025 applications through e-Albania had risen by 40%, on a baseline the Bank does not state. The target for 2029 is ten priority services online in all 61 municipalities.

The police run the other big programme. The “Smart City” programme of the Ministry of Internal Affairs plans more than 8,657 cameras in 20 cities, some of them body cameras for police officers. Its value was put at €60m in June 2024 and at $118.5m when parliament’s committee examined the loan in March 2025. In April 2026 it stood at $113.6m, financed by a loan from Abu Dhabi.

Under the UAE agreement, the then deputy interior minister Besfort Lamallari told the committee, there would be no tender; the lender’s conditions meant the Emirates would choose the contractor. Presight, part of the Abu Dhabi group G42, had been named in April 2024 and signed the contract in December 2025. The data-protection commissioner’s office told Transitions Online, a regional magazine, that no data-protection impact assessment was carried out. AKSHI keeps no list of which institutions use AI or biometric cameras.

European money comes as accession aid, not recovery funds. Of €922m allocated to Albania under the EU’s Reform and Growth Facility, €213m had been paid in three instalments by June 2026; digital transformation is one of five priorities. Albania is fully associated to Horizon Europe, the EU research programme, and opened the negotiating cluster that includes digital policy in May 2025. Its aim is membership by 2030.

The country’s digital spine leans on foreign owners. The camera network is financed and built from the Emirates. In 2022 the Hungarian IT company 4iG bought One Albania, a mobile operator, and ALBtelecom, leaving mobile to it and Vodafone. In 2021 a leaked database of 910,000 voters matched most of the fields e-Albania asks for. AKSHI rejected any link, and Rama denied the database was his party’s while acknowledging a door-to-door “system of patronage”.

e-Leje, the national building-permit system, is the clearest case of spread by law. It is the only way to apply for a building permit in all 61 municipalities. The Investment Council, a business advisory body, calls it “a successful case of service digitalisation, even though practical problems continue to arise from time to time”. Of the businesses it surveyed that had used e-Leje, 48% reported a good experience; municipalities complain of unannounced maintenance and too little training.

From our library

On Digital Transformation of Public Local Services for Businesses (Investment Council Albania, March 2025)

How far municipal e-services lag the national portal, measured with businesses.

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Elbasan and Fier show a national model that spread and failed. The government’s concessions for waste incinerators cost nearly €150m of public money. Elbasan’s, at €26m, ran for a few months and is now, in AFP’s words, “a rusting hulk”. Fier’s €23m plant never worked, and a third, for Tirana, was never built. A former minister, Lefter Koka, was jailed.

Elbasan is also Albania’s only city in the EU mission for climate-neutral and smart cities. On 16 February 2026, with Sarajevo, it became one of the first two in the Western Balkans to hold the Mission Label. Its plan links solar power and geothermal energy with farming and buildings. The announcement gives no baseline or investment figure. Meanwhile a dump fire in July 2025 sent dioxins and furans to more than seven times the limits, according to Besnik Baraj of the Academy of Sciences.

Shkodër, a northern city with a cycling tradition, measured its streets for a mobility plan paid for by the EIB. In 2024 walking, cycling and the private car each carried 32–36% of trips, while buses carried almost none. The city had about 4.3 km of protected bike lanes and a single urban bus line; when it planned three more, no operator bid. The plan was finished in late 2025.

From our library

Porta e Alpeve – Plani i Lëvizshmërisë së Qëndrueshme Urbane, Vëllimi I: Analiza e Gjendjes (Bashkia Shkodër, EIB Economic Resilience Initiative)

Shkodër’s measured travel patterns and the gaps in its bus service.

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Shkodër was also one of only four municipalities, with Berat, Përmet and Roskovec, to have an energy-efficiency action plan by November 2024, although the law has required one of every municipality since 2021. Durrës and Vlorë had taken no concrete step. Berat has run a pilot of waste separation at source since December 2024, just as waste is due to pass to a national operator.

Durrës, the main port, plans a new bike lane under SUMO 2.0. The Interreg project, with partners in Bar, Brindisi and Termoli, has €1,001,035 to the end of 2027 and a cross-border strategy for transferring its results. Durrës is also one of eight municipalities, with Elbasan, Fier and Vlorë, that had prepared a climate adaptation plan by September 2024; their implementation has not been reported.

Korçë notifies drivers of parking fines digitally, one of the local e-services the Investment Council calls “sporadic”, the product of individual municipal initiatives and lobbying. The World Bank programme is meant to replace that patchwork with ten common services by 2029.

Shkodër can still count its cyclists and draw a mobility plan, Elbasan can win a label and Durrës a bike lane, mostly with a donor’s or the EU’s money. What reached the other towns was sent from the capital: permits by law in all 61, cameras by contract to 20 chosen cities, and an incinerator scheme that failed in two. A legal duty that municipalities say came without the money or staff to meet it produced plans in four municipalities of 61. And in 2025 the centre forced out deputy mayors across the country, while waste is due to pass to a national operator.