Regional Office for the Western Balkans
Source details
- Canonical URL
- Regional Office for the Western Balkans
Other formats
Bibliographic details
- Authors: Arrangement, Resilience, Sustainability Facility Arrangement March
Mandate and Objectives
- The Regional Office for the Western Balkans, located in Vienna, Austria, was created to strengthen the IMF’s relationship with Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, and the 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.
- 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.
Contact and Leadership
- Regional Resident Representative: Sebastian Sosa
- Office address: Praterstraße 31, 1020 Vienna, Austria
- Phone (Cell): +43 676 661 5284
- Phone (Office): +43 1 217 07 73
- Email: westernbalkan-office@imf.org
Staffing and Capacity Building
- Job Position: Vacancy - Economist (Montenegro)
- Training and capacity development partners:
- Institute for Capacity Development
- Joint-Vienna Institute (JVI)
- Center of Excellence in Finance (CEF)
Recent Publications and Dates (selected)
- World Economic Outlook — Global Economy in Crosscurrents of War and Technology — July 8, 2026
- Global Financial Stability Report — Global Financial Markets Confront the War in the Middle East and Amplification Risks — April 14, 2026
- Fiscal Monitor — Fiscal Policy under Pressure: High Debt, Rising Risks — April 15, 2026
- Annual Report of the Executive Board — Getting to Growth in an Age of Uncertainty — September 24, 2025
Regional and Country-Level Findings, Reports, and Statements
- North Macedonia: Staff Concluding Statement of the 2026 Article IV Mission — April 1, 2026
- Op-ed: Kosovo’s path to prosperity: the role of structural reforms — Sebastian Sosa — January 3, 2026
- Montenegro: Central Bank Transparency Code Review — April 4, 2025
- IMF reached staff-level agreement on the Fourth and Final Reviews of Kosovo’s Stand-By Arrangement and Resilience and Sustainability Facility Arrangement — March 20, 2025
- North Macedonia: Staff Concluding Statement of the 2025 Article IV Mission — February 26, 2025
- IMF Executive Board concluded the 2024 Article IV Consultation with Albania — January 17, 2025
- Albania: 2024 Article IV Consultation — Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Albania — January 24, 2025
- Finding: Albania is on track to be one of the fastest growing economies in Europe in 2024, underpinned by tourism and prudent macroeconomic policies.
- Finding: GDP per capita stands at just around a quarter of the EU-15 level.
- Structural headwinds identified: rapid population aging, emigration, low productivity, and governance shortcomings.
- Republic of Kosovo: Technical Assistance Report — 25 Years of Tax Administration: Progress Review and a Roadmap for Continued Success — January 17, 2025
- Using Digitalization to Enhance Public Finance in Kosovo: Republic of Kosovo — January 17, 2025
Europe Regional Analysis (selected report findings and dates)
- October 2024: Europe’s economy is recovering, benefiting from a strong crises’ response, but 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. Longer-term constraints include perennially weak productivity growth, limited scale and business dynamism, fragmentation, and climate change.
- April 2024: A soft landing for Europe’s economies is within reach. Policy guidance:
- Secure the baseline of growth with price stability via careful monetary policy calibration.
- Faster fiscal consolidation to ensure adequate buffers for future shocks.
- Structural fiscal reforms to address mounting long-term expenditure pressures.
- Raise potential growth by increasing labor force participation, preparing the workforce for structural shifts, creating an enabling environment for private investment, and promoting innovation—especially for the green transition, including through a strong commitment to carbon pricing.
- Greater European integration to amplify reform effects; formulate an ambitious set of growth-enhancing reforms as a key priority for a new EU commission.
- April 2023: Economic growth has tumbled across Europe, inflation remains too high, and financial sector risks have materialized. Policy recommendations: tame sticky inflation while avoiding financial stress and a recession via tighter macroeconomic policies tailored to changing financial conditions, stronger financial regulation and supervision, and bolder supply-side reforms.
- 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. Central banks are acting more forcefully to bring high and persistent inflation down to targets, and global financial conditions have tightened. Policymakers face severe trade-offs: tighten macroeconomic policy to bring down inflation while helping vulnerable households and viable firms weather the energy crisis; policies need to stay nimble and agile.
- 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. The war will also have severe economic consequences for Europe.
- October 2021: An increasingly resilient recovery is taking hold in Europe, buttressed by gradual increases in vaccination rates and mobility. Uncertainty remains elevated because of the risk of new infection waves and virus variants amid uneven vaccination rates across countries. Recommendation: continue increasing vaccinations, notably in emerging European economies, and strongly support international efforts to speed up vaccine access globally.
- April 2021: With new waves of COVID-19 infections hitting Europe, Europe’s GDP growth is projected to rebound by 4.5 percent in 2021. Priorities: ramp up vaccine production and administration; continue emergency support to households and firms; prepare measures to stimulate hiring and investment once the pandemic is under control to reduce scarring from unemployment, missed education and training, and low investment.
Content in this bundle
- Resident Representative Office in Montenegro — Vacancy Announcement: Economist (NO-B)
- From Vaccination to V-Shaped Recovery
- Executive Summary vii
- Executive Summary vii
- Executive Summary
- Regional Economic Outlook—Europe, April 2024
- Executive Summary
References