TIRANA TIMES – TIRANA, April 19
Last week Prime Minister Sali Berisha delivered responses to the European Commission’s lengthy questionnaire on EU integration, saying it was “historic for Albania” and the most important event in the past two post-communist decades.
The preparation of the answers involved about 1,200 experts working on 2,284 questions.
That was a very important step along the country’s integration process into the European Union.
Following lengthy talks and fulfilling a series of steps earlier Albania in 2006 signed the Stabilization and Association Agreement with Brussels
It took three years for the more than two dozen EU member countries to ratify the agreement until January 2009.
Following that, Albania applied for the candidate status in April 2009 and in December 2009 the EU handed over the questionnaire to the government
Berisha handed over last Wednesday the thick book of thousands of pages with answers to EC Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele.
Based on those responses, the EC will decide whether Albania meets criteria for EU candidate status.
Tirana hopes to get that positive answer this year. That was also supported by Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini during his trip to Tirana last week.
“The Commission’s Opinion will be a fair and balanced assessment of Albania’s readiness to comply with the EU membership criteria. We will pay particular attention to the fulfillment of the Copenhagen political criteria and of the obligations under the Stabilization and Association Agreement,” said Fuele after meeting Berisha.
The answer from the European Commission commenting on the responses of Albania is set to come sooner rather than later.
“Albania has done a great job in putting together this comprehensive package of replies, through the efforts of many institutions, civil servants and experts as well as inter-institutional working groups,” the commission said. It is our turn now to work hard: to analyze these replies in detail, to organize in the coming months expert verification missions and to conduct consultations, both internal and with third parties, in order to obtain additional inputs for our opinion.”
The commission’s opinion will be a fair and balanced assessment of Albania’s readiness to comply with the EU membership criteria the commissioner stressed.
Paying particular attention to the fulfillment of the Copenhagen political criteria and of the obligations under the Stabilization and Association Agreement.
The timing of the opinion will largely depend on the quality and completeness of the information received.
Based on the commission’s opinion, the council will decide on the next steps to be taken.
Meanwhile it is very likely that the development in the country’s political arena may have their impact. It is clear that Albania should show to Europe they are capable of resolving the political stalemate on their own.
For the moment that does not seem a possibility with both political groupings steadfast on their position.
That will turn into a very delicate issue with Europe pressing Tirana to resolve the issue, the Albanian opposition pressing the government for vote transparency and the government set on its stand on no partial vote recount as asked by the opposition.
Consequently, a solution will come, but very likely that will be a hard pressure from Brussels.
Tirana and its politicians should take into account that Europe tired at the moment with new arrivals. They may also think that including Bulgaria and Romania was not a good decision, so what about Albania and its ever-squabbling politics?
