The Regional Office for the Western Balkans, located in Vienna, Austria, was created to strengthen the IMF’s relationship with Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Republic of North Macedonia. The objective of the office is to maintain a close engagement with the four countries as well as with donors, international institutions, including the World Bank, and the Austrian government, an important trade and development partner of the Western Balkan region.
Its main tasks include:• Engaging with policymakers and other interlocutors on economic policies; as well as fostering a dialogue on global economic issues;
• Supporting IMF operations in the Western Balkans, including policy advice, lending arrangements, technical assistance, and recruitment efforts;
• Helping to coordinate communication and outreach activities across the region.
Kosovo’s path to prosperity: the role of structural reforms
Op-ed by Sebastian Sosa, IMF Regional Resident Representative for the Western Balkans
January 3, 2026
Montenegro: Central Bank Transparency Code Review
April 4, 2025
March 20, 2025
North Macedonia: Staff Concluding Statement of the 2025 Article IV Mission
February 26, 2025
IMF Executive Board Concludes 2024 Article IV Consultation with Albania
January 27, 2025
The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV consultation with Albania on January 17, 2025.
January 24, 2025
Albania is on track to be one of the fastest growing economies in Europe in 2024, underpinned by tourism and prudent macroeconomic policies. Despite this strong performance, GDP per capita stands at just around a quarter of the EU-15 level. The economy is also facing structural headwinds, stemming from rapid population aging, emigration, low productivity, and governance shortcomings.
January 24, 2025
January 17, 2025
Using Digitalization to Enhance Public Finance in Kosovo: Republic of Kosovo
January 17, 2025
October 2024
Europe’s economy is recovering, benefiting from a strong crises’ response. Yet, the recovery is falling short of its full potential. Uncertainty about persistent core inflation, policy directions, and geopolitical conflicts, is dampening the near-term outlook. In the longer term, perennially weak productivity growth—a result of limited scale and business dynamism–-amid new headwinds from fragmentation and climate change are holding back growth potential.
April 2024
A soft landing for Europe’s economies is within reach. Securing the baseline of growth with price stability will require careful monetary policy calibration. Faster fiscal consolidation would ensure buffers are adequate to tackle future shocks, while structural fiscal reforms would help address mounting long-term expenditure pressures. Beyond the near-term recovery, raising potential growth prospects calls for efforts at both the domestic and European levels. Measures should aim to raise labor force participation, prepare the workforce for looming structural shifts, set an enabling environment for private investment, and promote innovation on a level European playing field—especially when it comes to the green transition, including through a strong commitment to carbon pricing. Greater European integration would amplify the effect of these reforms. Formulating an ambitious set of growth-enhancing reforms should be a key priority of a new EU commission.
April 2023
Economic growth has tumbled across Europe, inflation remains too high, and financial sector risks have materialized. Taming sticky inflation while avoiding financial stress and a recession will require tighter macroeconomic policies—tailored to changing financial conditions, stronger financial regulation and supervision, and bolder supply-side reforms that heal scars from the COVID-19 and energy crises.
October 2022
The war in Ukraine is taking a growing toll on Europe’s economies. The worsening energy crisis has depressed households’ purchasing power and raised firms’ costs, only partly offset by new government support. Central banks in the region and the world are acting more forcefully to bring high and persistent inflation down to targets, and global financial conditions have tightened. European policymakers are facing severe trade-offs and tough policy choices. A tightening macroeconomic policy stance is needed to bring down inflation, while helping vulnerable households and viable firms weather the energy crisis. But policies need to stay nimble and agile and adjust should additional shocks materialize.
April 2022
The Russian invasion of Ukraine created a humanitarian catastrophe. In two months since the invasion, about 5 million people, mostly women and children, have fled Ukraine, and thousands have been wounded or killed. The war will also have severe economic consequences for Europe, having struck when the recovery from the pandemic was still incomplete.
October 2021
An increasingly resilient recovery is taking hold in Europe, buttressed by gradual increases in vaccination rates and mobility. Strongly accommodative macroeconomic policies and COVID-19 support schemes have paved the way for the recovery by helping preserve employment relationships and protecting private sector balance sheets. However, uncertainty remains elevated, not least because of the risk of new infection waves and virus variants amid uneven vaccination rates across countries. It is therefore imperative to continue increasing vaccinations, notably in emerging European economies, and to strongly support international efforts to speed up vaccine access globally.
April 2021
With new waves of COVID-19 infections hitting Europe, the recovery remains halting. However, vaccinations are progressing and thus Europe’s GDP growth is projected to rebound by 4.5 percent in 2021. The main priority is to quickly ramp up the production and administration of vaccines. At the same time, policymakers need to continue providing emergency support to households and firms. And they need to prepare measures to stimulate hiring and investment once the pandemic is under control. Such measures will foster a quicker and fuller recovery, by reducing scarring from unemployment, missed education and training, and low investment.
