White Book Albania 2013
IV 1
Other Laws affecting Concessions
In addition to the provisions of the Concessions Law (9663/2006), as amended, concessionaires need to comply with other legal provisions, which are not always coordinated with the provisions of the Concession Law and/or of the Concession Agreement, which therefore may complicate the implementation of concessions. In addition, some other legal
provisions, especially related to public immovable properties and expropriation of private properties for public interest, are in practice difficult to be applied by concessionaires. Here below is a list of certain legal provisions which we believe need immediate attention from the Government to facilitate the implementation of concessions, especially in the energy sector.
SPECIFIC ISSUE
RECOMMENDATIONS
(1) Scope of Concession Rights – natural resources. Under Law 8093 dated 21.03.1996 On Water Reserves (to be repealed as at the 6th of December 2013 by Law Nr. 111/2012 on integrated management of water resources), the water concession permits are granted by the respective water basin council (which is an ad hoc body responsible for the management of water resources). Under Law 8093 - the duration of water concession is not longer than 30 years. The duration of water permits is even shorter (2) Scope of Concession Rights – public assets. Under article 4 of the Concession Law, the scope of this law is the granting of concessions for the conduct of the economical activities in certain sectors. In special cases, for the promotion of investments referred to in paragraph 1 of this article or for other priority sectors in economicdevelopment, in accordance with strategic objectives, the Council of Ministers may offer to domestic or foreign invesitors,
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(1) We propose to amend Law Nr. 111/2012 and the Concession Law, so as to also the Contracting Authority of the Concession (i.e. for energy sector – METE) to grant also rights to exploit the national resource (i.e. the water reserve), the duration of which must be equal to the duration of the concession agreement. It makes no sense for the concessionaire to obtain a separate and additional concession/ permit related to water usage (with shorter validity term) by the water basin councils. (2) We propose to coordinate amendments to the Concession Law, Law no. 8743 dated 22.02.2001 “On state public properties” and Law no. 8744 dated 22.02.2001 “On the transfer of state public properties to local government authorities”, and Law 33/2012 On registration of immovable properties” so as to allow: