European Union and Integration

Aiming to harmonize its water management legislation with the EU acquis, the Albanian Government transposed the European Union Water Framework Directive into its national legislation with the 2012 Law on Integrated Water Resource Management. The Law has been followed by implementing sub-legal acts and recently amended by Law 6/2018.

The better part of the last two years has made a case for the return of the ‘Balkan question’ on top of the European Union’s agenda. The Western Balkans (WB) countries’ - Albania included – difficult road towards the consolidation of democracy and the rule of law for the scope of accession to the European Union (hereinafter the EU) has been constantly burdened with difficulties.

The European Community/Union has been an important factor in the dissolution of the Ex-Yugoslavia, even though this affirmation has raised many critics and debates. This paper tries to re-evaluate this role in an actual perspective, after nearly quarter a century from the beginning of the conflict.

On May 18, 2017 the European Commission addressed the case of Facebook (FB) regarding the infringements of merger procedural rules under EC Merger Rules (ECMR) for providing incorrect or misleading information. Facebook was fined with  110 million for breaching EU Merger procedural rules in providing incorrect or misleading information during the acquisition of Whatsapp.

United Europe started a new era with the Maastricht Treaty, since the latter triggers the triumph of a numerous achievements both in the economic and political domain. The establishment of the monetary market and the preparations for introduction into the market of the common currency signals the maximum economic integration and refinement of the single market.