The Bank of Albania also approved the calendar of Supervisory Council meetings for 2026 at the end of last year.
According to the calendar, the first meeting was to be held today. The purpose of the meeting was to provide information regarding the Bank of Albania's activities during 2025.
However, due to the lack of a quorum, the meeting did not take place, but there was only an informational meeting between the existing members of the Supervisory Council.
In the practice of previous years, the annual meeting calendar was approved at the first meeting of the year.
But, in this case, the Supervisory Council approved the calendar at the last meeting of the year in closing, due to the expected lack of a quorum for decision-making at the beginning of this year.
The next meeting is scheduled to take place on February 4, with the objective of reviewing the quarterly Monetary Policy Report and deciding on the key interest rate.
However, almost certainly, the next meeting will also fail.
The Albanian Parliament has not included the election of new members of the Supervisory Council in its two-week work program.
According to sources from the Assembly, it is expected that the process in the Assembly will begin with the hearings of the candidates who have applied in the first week of February.
Consequently, the election of new members can only take place in the coming weeks and the Supervisory Council of the Bank of Albania may have a decision-making quorum, at best, for the meeting on March 4.
The mandate of the six members of the Supervisory Council, Luljeta Minxhozi, Artan Hoxha, Violeta Staka, Edlira Luçi, Ridvan Bode and Suela Popa, ended in December 2025.
Members of the Supervisory Council may not continue to exercise their functions after the end of their mandate. The Law “On the Bank of Albania” requires that the meeting of the Supervisory Council be held with the presence of more than half of the appointed members, including the presence of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Council.
For this reason, since December, the Supervisory Council no longer has a quorum and its decision-making is effectively paralyzed.
As often happens, the procedures for renewing the Supervisory Council and electing new members have started late.
Three of the vacant seats must be filled upon proposal by the Assembly itself, while the other three are quotas proposed by the Council of Ministers.
The Assembly closed the application procedure on December 9, and 20 candidates expressed interest.
Meanwhile, the Council of Ministers closed the acceptance of applications on December 26 and has not yet announced a list of candidates nor has it officially sent its proposals to the Assembly.
This is not the first time that the process of filling vacancies in market regulatory institutions has been delayed.
The Supervisory Council of the Bank of Albania faced such a situation precisely in 2018, before the election of members whose mandates were about to end.
Even in that case, the number of completed mandates was six. The failure to fill the vacancies in time blocked decision-making in the Supervisory Council for a short time./ Monitor
