After the devastating earthquake from November 26th, 2019, Prime Minister has emphasized that disaster damages will be not compensated by the State in the future, suggesting that citizens should assure their private insurance. Since the respective law is under the revision, we may assume that the process will be compulsory.

Given all of the above, I would like to highlight the necessity for the law to be subject of a broad discussion involving all stakeholders. In this process, the experience of law enforcement in other countries, especially those in the region, should be taken into account. In addition, the social aspect of the Law should be properly considered. In the future, we will face other hazards apart from those that are subject of this Law and if the state will not cover losses any more regardless of the disaster type (which seems to be the case), insurance companies should thus include those kinds (or scales) of disasters in their insurance schemes.

Damages impacted 321 educational institutions, 22 primary health care facilities and 42 municipal buildings. From your perspective, what measures could specifically address the question of resilience of critical infrastructure?

·The GoA should take all necessary measures to transpose the EU legislation related to critical infrastructure, such as EU Council Directive 2008/114 (December 2008) on the “identification and definition of critical European infrastructure and the need assessment to improve their protection”; Directive 2012/18 of the European Parliament and of the Council dated (July 2012) on the “control of major accident risks involving dangerous substances, amending and repealing the EC Council Directive 96/82/” and to ensure their implementation.

·All institutions should take the measures to identify critical infrastructure and critical infrastructure with transboundary effects.

·Implementation of the EUROCODE, a new seismic hazard map, inter alia, in the critical infrastructure design and their enforcement. 

·In close collaboration with the national and local level institutions, preparing as soon as possible, multi hazard risk assessment of existing and new critical infrastructure and the respective disaster risk management plan/civil emergency plans

·Verifying structural stability/resistance and compliance of existing critical infrastructure with seismic standards, based on the new seismic codes and the new seismic hazard map.

·Seismic strengthening of the existing critical infrastructure (including educational facilities in line with the new seismic codes and the new seismic hazard map, prioritizing them according to seismic risk assessment results, starting from the earthquake affected area.

·Periodic audits and control to ensure proper functionality of the existing critical infrastructure and suitable technologies; staff capacity building regarding internal and external disaster risks and the civil emergency plans as well as conducting regular drills.

·Build on existing collaboration and partnership with the national and local authorities to ensure proper and timely early warning, prevention, preparedness, and response and recovery measures.

·Strengthening early warning, monitoring, notification and alarm, alert devices and systems with the local and national networks.

·Land use, urban planning and all the other policies, legislation and regulation at national and local level should be risk informed in order to ensure resilient critical infrastructures.

·Technical agencies need to improve their capacity to model, forecast, assess and monitor hazards and risks in order to provide data for warning purposes with clear identification of high-risk areas and at-risk communities.

Country & Region

Albania