“Western Balkans exposed to threats and challenges”, SHISH: Characterized by fragile domestic political developments

EXCERPTS FROM SHISH 2021 PUBLIC REPORT

The security situation in the region
Albania has supported and continues to support any international effort in favor of regional and global peace and security. Moreover, our country pursues a constructive regional policy, based on the principles of cooperation, towards Euro-Atlantic integration processes, good neighborliness and respect for minority rights.

However, Albania being part of the NATO Alliance, the clear pro-Western position, the active role it plays in the region and beyond have turned it into a foreign policy objective of third actors, which aim to destabilize regional security, through the violation of social and ethnic cohesion, instrumentalization of nationalist factors in the region, use of propaganda and misinformation, increase of malignant influence, etc.
The security environment in the Western Balkans continues to be characterized by fragile domestic political developments, which show that the region remains exposed to threats and challenges, which come as a result of internal factors (socio-economic problems, inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions, corruption , organized crime), as well as the influence of external actors, interested in keeping it unchanged or in escalating the security and political situation in the region.
Foreign intelligence in the region
As a NATO member country, contributing to global peace and security, but also aspiring to become part of the large European family, Albania continues to remain the focus of several foreign intelligence services.
At the center of their activity for gathering information continue to remain internal developments in the field of politics and security, the pro-Western position of our country in relation to policies in international relations, relations with countries in the region and strategic allies, military exercises within Alliance and defense projects.

In other countries of the region, unfriendly intelligence services have focused their activities on amplifying inter-ethnic and inter-religious issues, promoting and supporting internal destabilizing factors, maintaining the status quo in relation to integration processes and deriving benefits from the role of its relation to the West.
Hybrid activities of non-Western actors have increased in the region, but also in our country, although not to the same extent as in the countries of the region. These types of activities are becoming more evident as countries make progress in democratization and integration processes.

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