By Altin Gjeta
Three decades ago Albania threw off the shackles of one of the most tightly closed Stalinist regimes in the Central Eastern Europe. While the communist dictatorship was crumbling, the dramatic footage of 1991 demonstrations feature thousands of people gathering in the streets of Tirana chanting “we want Albania to become like the whole Europe”, carving freedom and economic opportunity. Joining the EU thus became the new mantra of a nation isolated for half of a century from the western world. In this regard, the whole political discourse and public policy in Albania was framed around its EU accession bid.
Amid the positive momentum of the EU enlargement with Central Eastern countries, Albania along with other Western Balkan countries was officially identified as potential candidate country for EU membership at the Thessaloniki summit in June 2003. This marked the beginning of Albania’s EU integration path. Though it was lagging behind other neighbouring countries due to political turmoil of the 90s and the communist legacy, Albania made slow but tangible progress in the EU accession process during the 2000s. It signed the Stabilisation and Association Agreement in 2006, officially submitted its application for EU membership in 2009 and was granted the candidate country status by the European Council in 2014.
Since then, Albania’s EU integration path has reached a deadlock. It failed for four consecutive years to get a green light by the EU Commission to open accession negotiations. What is more, the EU standard conditionality was extended to Albania in March 2020 when the European Council decided to endorse the General Affairs Council’s decision to open accession negotiations provided it made tangible progress in a number of areas prior to the first intergovernmental conference. On top of that, accession negotiations were blocked by Bulgaria’s veto to North Macedonia over bilateral disputes.
Presumably, Albania is paying the price of the EU’s internal uncertainties. The financial and migrant crisis became a breeding bed for populist and Eurosceptic movements. Brexit and other internal disputes diminished the appetite of the EU to enlarge with new members at such an extent that Junker EU Commission Presidency put EU enlargement on hold and shifted its focus toward the deepening of internal integration and structural reform of the EU governance. The introduction of the New Enlargement Methodology last year shows the Union is not willing to extend with new members in the near future. This position was confirmed by the Brdo declaration which mirrors the Thessaloniki Summit European perspective of the Western Balkans. Basically, it seems that nearly after 20 years, the EU enlargement with the Western Balkans has returned at its starting point.
Nevertheless, as far as Albania’s accession process is concerned this is just one side of the story. Throughout the process, Albania has not managed to keep up with the EU’s accession criteria. Deep internal political crises, poor record in the fight against corruption and organised crime as well recent democratic backsliding kept the country at the EU’s bay.
Edi Rama, Prime Minister Albania for more than 8 years now, has walked away from the EU values and flirts with like-minded autocrats such as Turkish President Erdogan and Serbian President Vucic. He has openly blamed the EU for his own failures. In a recent opinion piece for Politico.eu, Rama accused EU of being unable to deliver its promises to the Western Balkans and floated once again the idea of Open Balkan, a controversial, non-inclusive regional initiative of Rama, Vucic and Zaev that overlaps with the Berlin Process.
Rama deliberately devaluates the importance of the EU integration to disguise his government’s failure in meeting EU membership criteria. He has successfully managed so far to deflect public’s attention from the EU integration path of Albania and lower people’s expectations of joining the EU soon. Albania’s stagnation in the EU accession process hardly makes headlines in the press. In mid of 2000s small steps were hailed as historic by governments and failures were meticulously scrutinised by the opposition, media and civil society. The EU Commission annual progress reports on Albania used to elicit heated debates in the media and parliament between the government and opposition, journalists and civil society activists. In contrast, newly released Commission’s progress 2021 report on Albania attracted little media coverage and what is more troubling got no scrutiny at all from the opposition or civil society organisations.
In such circumstances, when Albania’s EU accession has reached a dead end, the most energetic and prolific sections of the society, particularly the youth is leaving the country for good. The EU accession of Albania is not a viable option worth waiting for. And this is the new normal.
