Albania’s outlook for EU membership remains elusive

TIRANA, May 26 – Albania is expecting this year to get a positive approval from Brussels on its candidate status request following the completion of thousands of answers in an European Union questionnaire.
Tirana is also expecting a positive answer on the visa-free regime, likely next month.
But what are the real prospects? Will Albania be an EU member country one day? The problem remains its timing and much of that depends on the country itself.
The European Commission gave an approval of the recommendation for lifting the visa regime for citizens of Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but there are many more steps to be taken before the countries’ citizens can travel freely in Europe without a visa.
Although it will recommend the lifting of the visa regime for those two countries, the European Commission’s recommendation is expected to include a number of requirements that Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina must first fulfill. The EC will most likely ask Tirana and Sarajevo to meet three additional requirements.
The European Commission will ask Albania to complete the development of a strategy and policy to support the reintegration of Albanian returnees.
It will also call on both Albania and Bosnia to strengthen law enforcement capacities and effective implementation of the legal framework for the fight against organized crime and corruption, including through allocation of adequate financial and human resources.
The third requirement addressed to Tirana concerns the effective implementation of the new law adopted in 2009 in the area of the confiscation of criminal assets.
Last year, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina failed to meet the necessary conditions for visa liberalization, and thus could not be part of the first wave of visa-free travel for countries in the region. While all of the countries in the Western Balkans hoped to be granted a visa-free regime last year, only Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia succeeded in joining the so called Schengen “white list” in December 2009.
Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina had been hoping to join their neighbors on the list in the first part of this year. Additional expert missions were sent to both countries and this spring Brussels found that the two countries had made improvements in meeting benchmarks for visa-free travel.
Albanian and Bosnian citizens are unlikely to enjoy visa-free travel in the countries of Western Europe before the end of this year because of additional procedures necessary for the decision to become valid.
After the official recommendation by European Commission, it has to get the green light from the European Parliament and final approval of the Council of Ministers. Sources from the European Parliament have stressed that in the best-case scenario the parliament would address the visa issue in mid-September at the earliest. But that timing could be postponed in two other moments later this year.
After the European Parliament gives its go-ahead, the visa question will move to the Council of Ministers. The Belgian EU Presidency, which takes over the mandate on July 1, has insisted that the issue must be left in the exclusive hands of EU ministers of interior.
Once the interior ministers agree on lifting the visa regime for Albanian and Bosnian citizens, it enters into force twenty days after the decision is published in the EU’s official journal.
On June 2, 2010 Sarajevo will host the European Union – Western Balkans High-Level Meeting, which will gather delegations from the European Union, Western Balkans, Russian Federation and Turkey and international organizations.
The main goal of the Meeting is to reaffirm the EU’s commitment towards the European perspective of the countries in the Western Balkans, within the new framework of the Lisbon Treaty. The Meeting will take place ten years after the Zagreb Summit, which indicated the way for the structural, political and economic reforms that these countries needed to adopt in their path towards European Union. It is anticipated that a Declaration will be adopted at the end of the conference.
Croatia is next in line to join the EU, possibly in 2012. And the other Balkan states that are eager to follow suit נSerbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia and Albania נare watching closely.
But there are fears the EU is no longer closely watching them.
There are signs, however, of the bloc’s declining enthusiasm for admitting new members: An EU-sponsored conference scheduled in Sarajevo for early June, which had been billed as a show of welcome for the Balkan states, has been downgraded to a simple review of where their candidacies stand.
For Croatia and its Balkan neighbors EU entry remains the top goal.
At stake are EU funds, which in the past have helped new members like Ireland and Portugal reduce poverty and launch economic booms. It’s about access to European market, jobs and studies. No customs, no visas. Joint defense. And, as the Greek example showed, membership can also include a very large check when things get rough נeven if there are conditions attached.
For many with in the Balkans, symbolism also matters: Belonging to EU would mean you were part of the prosperous, decent West נno longer a backward, brawling thug.
Once the most isolated country in Europe, Albania joined NATO in 2008 and applied for membership of the EU last year but has not yet been granted candidate status.
A controversy over national elections last summer continues to reverberate, bogging down progress on reforms. Opposition demands for a full investigation into the vote have not swayed Prime Minister Sali Berisha’s center-right Democratic Party, which has 75 votes in the 140-seat chamber.
After ending a hunger strike of supporters, the opposition is keeping up pressure to demand the opening of disputed election boxes. Local elections are due in 2011 and parliamentary vote in 2013. A lot is at stake, and much depends on Albanians themselves.