good progress over the past year, but further consistent efforts are still needed. 2F 3 The salience given to these results in the domestic public sphere has contributed to the shaping of citizens’ perception over the urgent necessity to achieve sustainable results against corruptive practices and criminal activities. To what extent does the situation of corruption and organized crime hinder Albania's EU integration? 100 86.55 82.9 80 60 40 20 0 A lot 9.42 12.0 Somewhat 2.51 3.7 A little 2019 2020 0.9 1.1 Not at all 0.63 0.4 Don’t know Graph 2: Perception of the negative influence of corruption and organized crime on Albania’s EU integration. As shown in graph 2, approximately 83% of the public opinion shares the conviction that the domestic level of corruption and organized crime hinders Albania’s EU integration process. What is considered still problematic, is the level of trust that the citizens have in the new judicial institutions when referring to the potential achievement of concrete results in this policy area. Beyond political considerations, Albanians have suffered, for almost a quarter of a century, from unprofessional decisions of the judiciary, justifying, therefore, their low trust in the capacities of state institutions. In addition, the mobilization in the public realm of a certain number of political actors –sustaining diverging positions on the results of the justice reform- has led to a politicization of the judiciary reform, generating general fatigue and scepticism among the citizens. This is reflected in the findings of the last Albanian Security Barometer(see graph 3), where the number of respondents with high expectations on the work of the Special Anti-Corruption and Organised Crime Structure has been considerably reduced. In 2019 more than 43% of respondents trusted SPAK’s role in the fight against corruption and organized crime, however, in 2020 this figure decreased to only 21.9%. 3 Ibid. 8