members are informed about significant developments, particularly draft agreements, conventions and acts related to EU commitments and cooperation. This contributes to an informed legislative process that aligns with EU dynamics. IV. Recommendations and Steps to be Taken • The Council of Ministers shall publish the Negotiating Framework with the European Union and its Negotiating Position for each Cluster. The lack of its publication hinders transparency and accountability. • The Chief Negotiator or every leading institution shall publish every Legal Gap Analysis that was presented to the European Commission for each chapter of Cluster 1. • Harmonization of legislation is a core task of the accession process and can be broken down into several subprocesses or steps. Each of these should be designed carefully considering the characteristics of the accession process. This is necessary to accelerate the harmonization process. • Since EU law is subject to constant development, it is obvious that the harmonization of Albanian law to the EU acquis in force will need to be revised continuously. Ongoing monitoring of EU developments is necessary, both as a pre­accession effort and in order to prepare Albania for future EU membership. This requires a careful evaluation of the outcome of the alignment process, a broad political consensus on the importance of the process and increased capacity and professionalism of the civil servants dealing with these issues. • The negotiation process has started based on the new enlargement methodology, so it is necessary that the Albanian institutional structures dealing with integration, led by the Chief Negotiator, be reorganized based on this methodology, wherein the structures covering group chapters must be concretized as soon as possible. • The legal framework is complete, but the methodological base should be expanded. For each process, guidelines standardizing the process and clearly defining the rules, tasks and expectation of all structures taking part in the EU integration process should be prepared and implemented. These guidelines should be continuously revised and improved based on lessons learnt and gained experience. These acts should be formally approved by the Council of Ministers to give them legal power. • Overall integration structures should be as stable as possible. Of course, changes might be necessary, but these should be thoroughly considered, analysed, | THE NEED FOR A STRENGTHENED ACCOUNTABILITY AGENDA| 12