In the midst of the fire season, when several areas of the country are engulfed in flames and civil emergencies are on alert, Finance Minister Petrit Malaj has emphasized the increase in the budget for dealing with natural disasters.
In a post on social media, the minister claims that funds for civil emergencies have increased more than 13-fold in seven years, presenting this as evidence that Albania is "financially more prepared than ever."
The minister adds that the increase in funding is sustainable and that today the country has "a much larger budget, increased capacities and resources foreseen for emergencies."
"This is a sustained increase in funding to cope with fires, floods, natural disasters and other emergency situations," Malaj writes.
Budget for civil emergencies
Faktoje compared the figures published by the minister with the initial budgets and with the changes the government has made to civil emergency funds through normative acts over the years.
The 13-fold figure emerges if two initial budgets are compared, i.e. 430 million lek in 2020 with 5.7 billion lek in 2026. But normative acts show that funds for civil emergencies have been revised several times.
The data shows that from 2021 to 2025, the government has cut the civil emergency fund. The only exceptions are 2020 and the current year.
In 2022, for example, the initial budget was 4.1 billion lek, but with the latest normative act the fund was reduced to 1.8 billion lek. So, about 2.3 billion lek, or more than half of the initial fund, was removed.
The same situation is repeated in 2024 and 2025, which have been among the most difficult years for the country in terms of fires.
According to data for 2024, 168 fires were recorded in Albania, which burned 46,623 hectares of forests and pastures. In 2025, hundreds of fires burned 59,933 hectares, from north to south of the country.
It was precisely in these years that the civil emergency fund was significantly reduced compared to the initial budget. In 2024, from 5.3 billion lek projected at the beginning of the year, the fund dropped to 3.4 billion lek, a decrease of about 36%. In 2025, the fund was reduced from 5.4 to 3.9 billion lek, or about 28% less.
If we compare the funds after the budget changes, the increase in funding is much smaller than what the ministry presents.
From 0.9 billion lek in 2020, the fund reaches 5.7 billion lek in 2026, so it has increased about 6.3-fold. This means that it is less than half of what the finance minister claims.
13-fold increase, propaganda with numbers
The problem with the minister's statement is not the math. From 430 million lek in 2020 to about 5.7 billion lek in 2026, the initial budget has actually increased more than 13-fold.
The problem is that the minister uses this figure to create the idea that funds for civil emergencies have been steadily increasing. Normative acts show the opposite. Funding for fires, floods and other natural disasters has been reduced.
From 2021 to 2025, the government has cut funding for civil emergencies. This amount has even been reduced in two of the years with the most difficult summers in terms of fires.
So, the presentation of the initial budgets creates the impression of a continuous increase and multiplication of funds, while the normative acts show that the funding has been reviewed and cut in most years. For this reason, the statement is categorized as PROPAGANDA. /Taken from Faktoje.al
