REPUBLISHED

The Albanian “Odyssey” of public information

Erblin Vukaj · Originally published: 21 July 2026

From the “Bread & Heart” festival to building permits in Zvërnec, requests for public documents get lost amid referrals, institutional silence and administrative appeals.

Besides the sounds of Vendim Kapaj, included in the soundtrack to Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey”, Albania has another connection to the Odyssey: the endless journeys back and forth that journalists and citizens make in pursuit of public information.

A journey that, unlike Nolan’s film, does not always take you to your destination. The search for a public document passes from one institution to another, responsibilities are delegated and administrative appeals begin, but the result remains an endless back-and-forth.

In theory, Albania has one of the most important instruments for democratic oversight of institutions: law no. 119/2014 “On the Right to Information”. Every citizen has the right to request information from public authorities, while institutions have an obligation to respond within the deadlines and according to the procedures prescribed by law.

In practice, however, the road to public information and documents often runs through an administrative labyrinth where procedure replaces the information itself.

Over recent months, Citizens.al has submitted a series of information requests to various state institutions on matters of considerable public interest: urban projects, territorial development, events financed or supported by the government, and the use of public assets.

On paper, the procedure is simple: a request is submitted online, by email, and the institution replies within the deadline. In practice, almost none of our requests has been concluded without delays, partial answers, the delegation of responsibilities or complaints to the Commissioner for the Right to Information.

The latest case, involving the “Bread & Heart” international architecture festival, encapsulates how institutional transparency works in Albania today.

From one institution to another

On 14 May 2026, Citizens.al requested detailed documentation on the organisation of the “Bread & Heart” festival. The request was neither speculative nor unusual. It resembled the requests submitted during the summer of 2025 for the festival’s first edition.

Citizens.al requested contracts and cooperation agreements, memoranda, sponsorships, financing, selection procedures, documentation on the use of public spaces, the list of private partners, the public funds used and the administrative acts accompanying the organisation of the event.

The request was sent simultaneously to the Prime Minister’s Office, the Territorial Development Agency (AZHT), the National Territorial Planning Agency (AKPT), and the festival organisers. Just one day later, the Prime Minister’s Office referred the request to AZHT.

AKPT replied in part, stating that it had played “only a supporting role”, and suggested that the information be requested from AZHT. The latter did not reply. With answers and documents lacking, Citizens.al turned to the Commissioner for the Right to Information.

The Commissioner closed the proceedings concerning the Prime Minister’s Office, arguing that the institution had acted correctly in referring the request, while continuing the proceedings concerning AZHT and AKPT.

The practical result? After weeks of administrative procedures, Citizens.al still does not have the answers and documents it requested. At the end of this process, the institutions did not tell us that the documents did not exist. They simply did not make them available to us.

But who has the documents?

This is the question that remains unanswered in the “Bread & Heart” case, and that recurs in almost every similar request.

The festival’s two editions were not private events. Participants included Prime Minister Edi Rama, heads of public institutions and international architects. Some events took place on public and state premises, such as the Centre for Openness and Dialogue (COD) and government villa no. 5, known as “No. RED”.

When an institution administers a public asset and that asset is used for an institutionally supported event, it is difficult to understand how the same institution might not hold the documentation relating to its use.

Yet the official answer we received was not that the documents did not exist, but that the request should be pursued with another institution.

This is the paradoxical situation in which we often find ourselves as journalists: one institution refers the request elsewhere, another does not reply, and a third declares that it has no jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, the information remains inaccessible, no one provides the documents and, as weeks or months pass, the issue risks losing its news value as well.

In other cases, institutions reply that the information and documents can be found “online, on the official website”.

This is generally the answer we have received from AZHT concerning various building permits, even though the institution’s website contains limited, superficial or outdated information.

For example, AZHT has still not made public the building permit for fencing and preparatory works for the construction of access roads for the “Zvërnec South Adriatic Development” company’s project.

The permit was approved at the meeting of 29 April (Agenda Item No. 5) and has been widely cited, including by Prime Minister Rama himself. Yet the document has not been published in full or made available even after information requests.

Similarly, decisions said to have rejected applications for building permits are not published either.

When procedure matters more than transparency

“Bread & Heart” is not the only case. Citizens.al has previously requested information about the foundation of the same name, formalised on 12 October 2025.

We requested information and documents on AZHT’s institutional relationship with the foundation, the organisation of meetings with international architects, and the legal basis for public institutions’ involvement in these activities.

Here too, answers were lacking. The response we received in late January 2026 came late, was partial, contained no supporting documents and was obtained only after administrative appeals to the Commissioner.

Similar situations have arisen in requests for information on the National Library project, urban planning documentation for various developments in Tirana, master plans, and the procedures followed by institutions for public works.

Instead of leading to the documents, the process often turns into a series of additional procedures, exhausting for a journalist, a newsroom or a small media outlet, and all the more so for an ordinary citizen.

The Commissioner for the Right to Information has a key role in this process. The law designates the Commissioner as the independent authority that oversees implementation of the right to information, examines complaints and can take measures when institutions fail to meet their obligations.

In our experience, however, a considerable share of the administrative communication with this institution has focused on checking procedure, while examining the substance of the right to information has often taken second place.

Complaints have been handled separately for each institution, with different forms, clarifications for each point of the request, jurisdictional checks and additional documents.

For every complaint, we have also been asked for a copy of an identity document and authorisation from the media outlet where we work.

Even when these procedures are prescribed or administratively necessary, my experience as a journalist shows that they have rarely ended with the documents being obtained in full. In most cases, the process has lasted weeks or months. Thus, while the information remains inaccessible, the mechanism risks failing to fulfil the purpose for which it was created.

This, in essence, is not a debate about our convenience as journalists. We do not request public information for personal interests, but to put it before the public. In circumstances where the government refuses to be transparent.

Every delay or obstacle therefore harms not only our work as journalists, or that of the media outlets where we work, but also citizens’ right to know how public funds, property and decision-making are managed.

In this context, laws are measured not by how they are written, but by how they are implemented and how they work.

If a professional journalist, familiar with the practice, deadlines and procedures, is forced to go from one institution to another, submit different complaints, wait for weeks and, in the end, fail to obtain the documents requested, a question arises that is much bigger than the individual case.

How real and tangible is the right to information for an ordinary citizen? Because most citizens do not have the time, knowledge or resources to pursue such a process.

If transparency becomes a bureaucratic marathon even for journalists, then the problem is no longer a single institution. The problem is how the transparency system itself works in practice.

Law no. 119/2014 was adopted to bring journalists and citizens closer to public information, not to force them to go from one office to another asking who holds the information or the documents relating to it.

A democracy is measured not only by the existence of transparency laws, but by citizens’ ability to obtain information in time, without unnecessary obstacles and without facing an administration that, even when it respects procedure, manages to evade the substance: informing the public.

The Albanian Odyssey of public information has no sirens, cyclopes or stormy seas. It has referrals, silence, forms, complaints and incomplete answers.

But the destination often remains just as distant: the document that should have been public from the start.

Note: At the time of this article’s publication, Citizens.al is still awaiting replies to the information requests sent to AKPT and AZHT concerning the “Bread & Heart” festival. If the documentation is made available, this article and the other reports related to the issue will be updated to reflect the information and the institutions’ full position.