WEASA discussion: Two roads towards the EU: how differently Georgia and Albania are moving forward?

We are thrilled to share with you another successful collaboration of our alumni members Nino Samkharadze from Georgia and Dr. Gentjan Skara from Albania. 

Although their respective editions (2020 and 2021) are different, WEASA links its alumni members through many initiatives, such as the WEASA Peer-to-Peer Meetings. The aim of the initiative is to fulfil the recommendations and wishes of our alumni who are eager to reconnect. By giving them support with visiting their peers, doing research in a topic of interest, conducting interviews, and other professional endeavours, it fosters communication amongst alumni members.   

Nino collaborated closely with Gentjan to make her concept a reality. Nino, a policy analyst with a keen interest in European integration, aimed to conduct a comparative study of the countries in transition from the Western Balkans. Given the fact that Georgia recently joined the club of the EU membership candidate countries Nino considered how she could assist her own country by researching other countries with comparable futures. While the two enlargement regions have different contexts and each Western Balkan country has its own distinct experience of moving forward, Albania was on her mind. She believes that Georgia needs to carefully evaluate the key patterns and dynamics of each country with a similar path in order to get ready for the next steps. 

The analysis is based on desk research and in-depth interviews conducted with experts working on Albania’s EU integration issues with different capacities. The paper is ready, and we are happy to invite you to its presentation and discussion on February 8, at 4pm CET.  

The registration link is available here: https://forms.office.com/e/7mQmBujLT5 

The registered attendees will receive the Zoom link for the presentation closer to the event. 

Here are the profiles of our alumni members: 

Nino Samkharadze is a Policy Analyst at Georgian Institute of Politics GIP (gip.ge). At the same time, she is a PhD student at Tbilisi State University (TSU), Department of Political Science. She has obtained MA degree in Nationalism and Ethnicity Studies from TSU and BA degree in International Relations from International Black Sea University (IBSU). Being an invited lecturer at IBSU she delivers courses in Introduction to Political Science and Nationalism in International Relations. Nino’s research interests include nationalism, identity politics and their influence on political processes in the post-Soviet region. 

Dr. Gentjan Skara holds an LLB from the University of Tirana (Albania); a MA in ‘European Studies’ from Epoka University (Albania); an LLM for “South East European Law and European Integration” from the University of Graz; PhD in EU Law and National Legal System program’ from the University of Ferrara. He has been a visiting researcher at the Institute of Corporate and International Commercial Law, University of Graz (Austria), and at the Department of International Law, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). From October 2012 until 31 July 2023, Genti has been a full-time member of the Department of Law at “Beder” University College teaching International and EU law courses. As of 1 August 2023, Genti is a full-time lecturer of EU Law and competition law courses at Epoka University.