Accession of Albania to the European Union

Albanian EU accession bid
Status	Candidate
Opened chapters	0
Closed chapters	0
Website	http://punetejashtme.gov.al/
Statistics
EU average Albania PPP GDP ($M) 552,780 29,092[1] PPP per capita ($) 40,600 11,840[2] Area (km2) 165,048 28,748 Population 18,583,598 3,195,000[3]

Albania
This article is part of a series on the politics and government of Albania
Constitution Human rights
Executive President (List) Ilir Meta Prime Minister (List) Edi Rama Deputy Prime Minister (List) Senida Mesi Cabinet
Legislature Parliament Speaker (List) Gramoz Ruçi Committees Members Leader of the Opposition
Judiciary Constitutional Court Administrative Court Court of Justice (ordinary) Supreme Court
Administrative divisions Counties Municipalities Cities Villages
Elections Recent elections Presidential 2007 2012 2017 Parliamentary 2009 2013 2017 Local 2007 2011 2015 Referendums 1994 1997 1998 Political parties Parliamentary PD PS LSI PDIU FRD PR PBDNJ LIBRA
Foreign relations Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs Minister: Ditmir Bushati Diplomatic missions of Albania in Albania Foreign relations of Albania
Other countries Atlas

The Republic of Albania has been an official candidate for accession to the European Union (EU) since June 2014 and is on the current agenda for future enlargement of the EU.

Officially recognised by the EU as a "potential candidate country" in 2000, Albania started negotiations on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) in 2003. This was successfully agreed and signed on 12 June 2006, thus completing the first major step toward Albania's full membership in the EU. Albania applied for European Union membership on 28 April 2009.

Following the steps of countries joining the EU in 2004, Albania has been extensively engaged with EU institutions, and joined NATO as a full member in 2009.

Following its application for EU membership, the Council of the European Union asked the European Commission on 16 November 2009 to prepare an assessment on the readiness of Albania to start accession negotiations, a step in the accession process that usually takes about a year.^[4] On 16 December 2009, the European Commission submitted the Questionnaire on accession preparation to the Albanian government. Albania returned answers to them on 14 April 2010.^[5] On 5 December 2013, an MEP meeting recommended to the Council to grant Albania candidate status without undue delay.^[6]

On 23 June 2014, under the Greek EU Presidency, the Council of the European Union agreed to grant Albania candidate status, which was endorsed by the European Council a few days later.

Albania is currently receiving EUR 1.2bn of developmental aid until 2020 from the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, a funding mechanism for EU candidate countries.

Chronology of the relations with the European Union

In 1992 a Trade and Co-operation Agreement between the EU and Albania was signed, and Albania became eligible for funding under the EU Phare programme. In 1997 the EU Council of Ministers established political and economic conditionality for the development of bilateral relations between Albania and the EU. In 1999 the EU proposed the new Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP) for five countries of Southeastern Europe, including Albania. Starting from 1999 Albania benefited from Autonomous Trade Preferences with the EU. In year 2000 duty-free access to EU market was granted for products from Albania.^[7]

In June 2000, during the European Council stated that all the SAP countries are "potential candidates" for EU membership. In November 2000, at the Zagreb Summit, the SAP was officially endorsed by the EU and the Western Balkan countries (including Albania). 2001 was the first year of the new CARDS programme specifically designed for the SAP countries. In June 2001 the Commission recommended the undertaking of negotiations on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with Albania. The Göteborg European Council (June 2001) invited the Commission to present draft negotiating directives for the negotiation of a SAA. In October 2002 directives for the negotiation of a SAA with Albania were adopted 31 January 2003. On 31 January, Commission President Prodi officially launches the negotiations for a SAA between the EU and Albania. In June 2003 at the Thessaloniki Summit, the SAP was confirmed as the EU policy for the Western Balkans and the EU perspective for these countries was confirmed (countries participating in the SAP started to be eligible for EU accession and would join the EU once they would become ready). In December 2005 the Council made the decision on the principles of a revised European Partnership for Albania. On 12 June 2006 the SAA was signed at the General Affairs and External Relations Council in Luxembourg.^[7]

On 9 November 2006 the European Commission decided to start visa facilitation negotiations with Albania, and on 13 April 2007 the visa facilitation agreement was signed in Zagreb. The signing EU Commissioner Franco Frattini was quoted saying that this is the first step toward a full abolishment of the visa requirements and the free movement of the Albanian citizens in the EU. On 1 January 2008 the visa facilitation agreement entered into force and on 7 March 2008 EU Commissioner Franco Frattini opened in Tirana the dialogue toward the liberalisation of the visa regime between Albania and EU. On 14 January 2009 the SAA ratification process by all the member states was completed and on 1 April 2009 The SAA entered into force.

On 28 April 2009 Albania formally applied for membership in the European Union.^[7] On 16 November 2009 the Council of the EU asked the European Commission to prepare an assessment on Albania's readiness to start accession negotiations. The Commission submitted the questionnaire on accession preparation to the Albanian government.^[4] On 14 April 2010 Albania submitted answers to the European Commission's questionnaire,^[5] but candidacy status was not granted by the EU in December 2010 due to the long-lasting political row in the country.^[8]

On 27 May 2010 The European Commission proposed visa free travel for Albania. The adopted proposal will enable citizens of Albania to travel to Schengen countries without needing a short term visa.^[9] On 8 November 2010 the Council of the European Union approved visa-free travel to Schengen Area for Albanian citizens.^[10] On 15 December 2010 visa-free access to the Schengen area entered into force and on 10 October 2012 the European Commission recommended that Albania be granted EU candidate status, subject to the completion of key measures in certain areas.

The parliament in August 2012 rejected a proposal to abolish immunity for parliament members, ministers and people in some other official positions. The EU required this to be abolished along with 11 other main issues, so candidate status was further delayed.^[11] However, in September 2012 a constitutional amendment was unanimously passed which limited the immunity of parliamentarians.^[12]

In October 2012 the European Commission evaluated the progress of Albania to comply with 12 key conditions to achieve official candidate status and start accession negotiations. Four key priorities were found to be met, while two were well in progress and the remaining six were in moderate progress. The report concluded that if Albania managed to hold a fair and democratic parliamentary election in June 2013, and also implemented the remaining changes to comply with the eight key priorities still not fully met, then the Council of the European Union would recommended granting Albania official candidate status.^[13][14] On 23 June 2013 Albania held a general election, generally regarded as free and fair.^[15] The EU ambassador to Albania said on July 17 that Albania had met many of these conditions, and might be an official candidate by December 2013.^[16]

On 16 October 2013 the European Commission released its annual reports on prospective member states which concluded that the Albanian election was held in an "orderly manner" and that progress had been made in meeting other conditions; as such it recommended granting Albania candidate status.^[17] On 5 December 2013 in an MEP meeting it was recommended that "...the Council should acknowledge the progress made by Albania by granting it candidate status without undue delay."^[6] However, several states, including Denmark and the Netherlands, remained opposed to granting Albania candidate status until it demonstrated that its recent progress could be sustained.^[18] Consequently, the Council of the European Union, at its meeting in December 2013, agreed to postpone the decision on candidate status until June 2014.^[19] On 24 June 2014, under the Greek EU Presidency, the Council of the European Union agreed to grant Albania candidate status,^[20][21] which was endorsed by the European Council a few days later.^[22] This coincided with the 10th anniversary of the "Agenda 2014",^[23] proposed by the Greek Government in 2004, as part of the EU-Western Balkans Summit in Thessaloniki, for boosting the integration of all the Western Balkan states into the European Union.^[24]

In March 2015, at the fifth "High Level Dialogue meeting" between Albania and EU, the EU Commissioner for Enlargement (Johannes Hahn) notified Albania the setting of a start date for accession negotiations to begin still required the following two conditions to be met: 1) The government need to reopen political dialogue with the parliamentary opposition, 2) Albania must deliver quality reforms for all 5 earlier identified key areas not yet complied with (public administration, rule of law, corruption, organised crime, fundamental rights^[25]).^[26] This official stance, was fully supported by the European Parliament through its pass of a Resolution comment in April 2015,^[27] which basically agreed with all conclusions drawn by the Commission's latest 2014 Progress Report on Albania.^[28] The Albanian Prime Minister outlined the next step of his government would be to submit a detailed progress report on the implementation of the 5 key reforms to the Commission in Autumn 2015, and then he expected the accession negotiations should start shortly afterwards - before the end of 2015.^[26]

The Albanian parliament approved constitutional amendments on justice reforms on 22 July 2016. Albania had hoped to open membership negotiations by December 2016.^[29] The Commission recommended the launch of negotiations on 9 November 2016.^[30]

However, on 26 November Germany announced that it would veto the opening accession talks until 2018.^[31]

In early 2017, the European Parliament warned the government leaders that the parliamentary elections in June must be "free and fair" before negotiations could begin to admit the country into the Union. The MEPs also expressed concern about the country's selective justice, corruption, the overall length of judicial proceedings and political interference in investigations and court cases but the EU Press Release expressed some optimism: It is important for Albania to maintain today's reform momentum and we must be ready to support it as much as possible in this process.^[32][33]

European Commission recommend European Council to open negotiations with Albania & Macedonia in April 2018. In June European Council of Ministers meeting to discuss for open negotiations or no for 2 countries Albania & Macedonia.

State of Stabilisation and Association Agreement ratification

Negotiation progress

As of April 2018, the European Commission has voiced support for starting accession negotiations with Albania.^[52] The European Council will make the decision if Albania is ready to start accession negotiations in June 2018.^[53] As such, no chapters have been opened thus far. If the European Council approves, screening will start and once screening has finished, accession negotiations will begin. However Knut Fleckenstein, a Member of the European Parliament said in June, 2018 that Albania has fulfilled conditions for EU accession negotiations.^[54]

Impact of joining

Member countries	Population	Area (km²)	GDP (billion US$)	GDP per capita (US$)	Languages
Albania	3,000,110	28,748	14.12	4,912	Albanian
EU28	507,890,191	4,381,376	17,267	33,998	24
EU28+1	510,766,782 (+0.56%)	4,410,124 (+0.65%)	18,679 (+0.08%)	33,522 (−0.14%)	25

See also

• Enlargement of the European Union
• Future enlargement of the European Union

References

Further reading

• Albania and the European Union: the tumultuous journey towards integration ... By Mirela Bogdani, John Loughlin, 2007
• Delegation of the European Union to Albania
• European Commission - Enlargement: Country Profile.
• Albanian Ministry of European Integration
• Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• European Commission - Western Balkans: Enhancing the European perspective
• European Commission - Enlargement Strategy and Main Challenges 2009-2010