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The US extends the "emergency" for the Western Balkans: Corruption in Albania is widespread within the government

The US extends the "emergency" for the Western Balkans: Corruption in

American President Joe Biden has decided to still consider the situation with corruption in the Western Balkans as a "national emergency".

The executive order of June 26, 2001, signed by President George W. Bush, focused on people who at the time were considered to be destabilizing the Balkan region, mainly by inciting interstate conflicts, such as in Kosovo, Macedonia or Bosnia-Herzegovina.


In an updated order 20 years later, on June 8, 2021 – executive order no. 14033 - President Biden supplemented the original statement by adding the element of corruption as an "extraordinary danger to the national security and foreign policy of the United States".

"The situation in the territory of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Albania (Western Balkans), during the last two decades, including the violation of post-war agreements and institutions after the dissolution of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as well as widespread corruption within various governments and institutions in the Western Balkans, hinders progress towards effective and democratic governance and full integration into transatlantic institutions, and therefore poses a major and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.

... I will continue for 1 year the national emergency declared by Executive Order 13219 regarding the Western Balkans ," said the announcement signed by President Biden. 

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