On January 19, 2017 a consultative meeting on the draft law "For the protection of national minorities in the Republic of Albania" was held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The meeting was attended by Mayors, County Prefects and the members of the Interagency Working Group on the draft, as well as representatives of the Council of Europe Office in Tirana, the EU Delegation, and the OSCE Presence.

Within the implementation of a more inclusive process on inter-institutional and public consultation, today's meeting aimed at identifying the issues related to the protection and respect of the rights of national minorities at local level and at a more complete treatment of these issues in this draft law.

In her opening speech, Deputy Minister Barbullushi pointed out that MFA and Albanian institutions have been working on the draft law "For the protection of national minorities" over 2016 as an expression of the will of the Albanian government to fulfill the commitments on minorities.

Deputy Minister Barbullushi underlined the fact that this consultative meeting, as a continuation of the previous meetings with stakeholders and minority associations, serves for achieving an inclusive and effective process. The draft law on minorities is based on international commitments, the best practices of European and international expertise in this field.

The Mayors and County Prefects praised the commitment on the draft law and underlined difficulties related to minorities, which are vulnerable to the daily work of the local government units in order to address them in this draft law.

The public consultation process based on Law No. 146/2014 "On public notification and consultation" ends on January 20, 2017.​