Prime Minister Edi Rama has distributed to ministers and Socialist lawmakers a 39-page document titled “BESA,” presented by the government itself as the strategic document for the turning point of the fourth mandate. In the official version, it aims to provide the diagnosis, objectives, implementation mechanisms and the way government performance will be measured. But beyond the programmatic language, the core question remains how many of these principles will produce real accountability rather than simply a new political framework.
A strategic text for government and the administration
The document, presented at the meeting of the parliamentary group and the cabinet, is described as a roadmap for the government, the administration and the political structure of the ruling majority.
The text stresses that “BESA” is not a sectoral program, nor an administrative regulation, nor a communications document. According to the version presented by the prime minister, it is intended to establish a single standard for how decisions are made, explained, implemented and corrected.
The claim of a new standard of credibility
The document states that the proposed instruments do not overlap with the roles of institutions, since public consultation, regulatory impact assessment and performance plans already exist.
According to this concept, “BESA” will bring these mechanisms together into a single standard of credibility and will require every new obligation to replace, merge or simplify an existing procedure. This is a familiar ambition on paper, but the challenge remains implementation in an administration that has for years been criticized for overloaded procedures and a lack of effective transparency.
The seven points the government calls key
The document lists seven “capabilities” of credible governance that, according to the government, the majority should follow during this mandate: listening, evidence, explanation, care, measurement, learning and foresight.
“Listening” is defined as the ability of institutions to understand society before dissatisfaction turns into crisis. “Evidence” is linked to grounding every strategic decision in verifiable evidence, while “explanation” is tied to the idea that transparency does not end with publication, but with understanding decisions.
It goes on to describe “care” as a balance between maintenance, service quality and new investment; “measurement” as an assessment of change in citizens’ lives and not only administrative activity; “learning” as turning error into institutional knowledge; and “foresight” as the ability to identify risk at the signal stage.
A political message, not yet a balance sheet of results
Although presented as a new architecture of responsibility, the document remains at the level of declared principles and standards. At this stage, it provides no concrete details on new measures, measurable deadlines or sanctioning mechanisms when these principles are not respected.
This is precisely where the real test for the government lies: whether “BESA” will remain a guiding text for internal political consumption, or whether it will be accompanied by decision-making that is more verifiable, better explained and less closed to public criticism.
At its core, the document seeks to establish a new language for governance in the fourth mandate, with a focus on credibility and performance measurement.
But its weight will not be measured by the wording across 39 pages, but by whether institutions change the daily practice of decision-making and accountability.