A difficult road toward EU

TIRANA, Sep. 15 – Albania is among eight countries that are waiting in the wings to join the European Union.
Croatia and Turkey started accession talks on 3 October 2005. Turkey could complete them in 15 years, Croatia by 2011.
The other Balkan countries have been told they can join the EU one day, if they meet the criteria. These include democracy, the rule of law, a market economy and adherence to the EU’s goals of political and economic union.
Iceland is the latest country to seek EU membership.
Albania is not expected to join the EU until 2015 at the earliest. It formally applied for membership on 28 April 2009.
The European Commission says it is ready to recommend visa-free travel to the EU for Albanians. Before that they had suspicions largely because of delays in introducing biometric passports and weaknesses in border controls.
In December 2009, EU governments said strengthening the rule of law and combating organized crime and corruption remained “urgent challenges” for Albania.
The EU and Albania concluded a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA), seen as the first step towards membership, in June 2006.
The negotiations took three-and-a-half years – three times longer than they took in Croatia’s and Macedonia’s case.
This is because the EU thought Albania was moving too slowly in the fight against corruption and organized crime. The EU also has doubts about Albania’s energy sector, which suffers unstable supplies.
And besides all these Albania should also comply with the basic Copenhagen criteria – a democracy that works, and the existing deadlock is not helping at all.