TIRANA, Dec 21 /ATA/ The Subcommittee on Diaspora and Migration, part of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Policy, chaired by Adnor Shameti, held a hearing on Monday with Minister of State for Diaspora, Pandeli Majko, regarding the 2020 activity of the National Diaspora Agency, the Albanian Fund for Diaspora Development, Publishing Center for Diaspora and Center for Arberesh Studies and Publications.
Majko said in his reporting that for the ministry he runs, the year 2020 was a difficult period, as a result of the emergency created by COVID, yet there were no difficulties in approval of the second strategy.
The Minister emphasized the fact that, since 2017, the State Ministry for Diaspora was one of the few institutions that has approved two strategies within this period.
Minister Majko also touched on two important issues: the progress of interstate agreements on emigrants ‘pensions and immigrants’ voting.
Regarding the interstate agreements on pension issues in the host countries of Albanian emigrants, he said that there were setbacks due to the lack of face-to-face communication, which made negotiations difficult during the pandemic.
However, he brought to attention a positive development from online communications with state officials of the Italian government, from whom he received assurance that the issue of the pension agreement is only a matter of time between Albania and Italy.
Regarding the emigrants ‘vote, Minister Majko said that he is in touch with the CEC which, through two articles of the Electoral Code adopted by parliament, becomes eligible for decision-making on the emigrants’ voting.
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