This is the seventeenth in a series of international reviews of national youth policy conducted by the Council of Europe since 1997. The international review team visited Albania twice in 2009 and a national hearing on its conclusions was held in Tirana in February 2010. The framework of the review was a little different from preceding reviews and can be considered as a "third stage" in an evolving review process. The first stage was somewhat ad hoc until, after seven reviews, a synthesis of the findings to that point was produced, and a framework to guide future reviews was suggested. This framework was broadly followed for the next seven reviews, when a further synthesis added significantly to the framework of issues that any review should be attentive to. The analysis was focused much more on three issues identified a priori by the Albanian authorities (suggested during a preliminary visit that took place in January 2009 and following a practice that was first established during the 8th review of Lithuania in 2002) and three issues that were viewed as important priorities by the international review team.