Nearly a decade ago, this newspaper interviewed the ambassador of a northwestern European country. It asked a simple question: How long will it take for Albania to become a member of the European Union. The answer was telling: “As long as it takes to get it right.”
As Albania approaches 25 years since the fall of communism, the country has at least a decade to go before it can hope to join the bloc, based on the path of the most recent entrant, Croatia.
But there are no guarantees. The transition period from a communist pariah to a democratic free-market EU member could take as long as the communist regime itself, if all conditions must be met and Albania can achieve standards like those Croatia has today. We are talking about membership in 2030 as a worst case scenario, since the EU refuses to give a specific date.
To many Europeans this would be a normal process. For Albanians it is a painful fact. The EU insists Albanians must fix Albania and is offering help for the country’s government to do so. It is the right approach. It is also taking too long.
First, it is clear Albania needs to do much more to become a more credible candidate for membership in the true meaning of those words. It needs to increase its GDP, institute a strong state of law and form a more internationally palatable political class before the EU can take it seriously. But these things will not happen unless there is immense pressure on the political class of the country.
The EU must also work directly to get rid of the apathy and fear that rules most Albanian voters. It must bypass the political class where it is possible to do so and work with the Albanian people and civil society directly.
The latest polls show that only 15 percent of Albanians trust the political parties. It is simple for an outsider to say that Albanians can choose better politicians since they don’t like the ones they currently have without fully understanding the country’s nuances – the cultural trauma of Enver Hoxha’s regime and the massive brain drain Albania underwent in the past two decades.
In addition, the country’s residents are subjected on a daily basis to biased media coverage that varies from blatant opinion passed as news to more sophisticated forms of what, in essence, is biased information in favor of one party or another.
Albania and the region need to speed up the process and get it right. And EU’s current dynamics of “bad cops and goods cops” can be helpful in doing so by both pushing for a faster membership date and upholding the proper standards.
The central and eastern European nations have some empathy for the Western Balkans. Success stories of previous expansions like Poland and the Czech Republic want to see the best the region has to offer. Neighbors like Italy and Greece would much rather have the region inside the bloc for both political and economic reasons.
In addition to direct interest, there is cultural affinity in the case of Greece and Italy and a feeling of shared suffering under communism in the case of central and eastern countries.
These are the good cops of the European Union. They want Albania and the region to join sooner rather than later.
And then there are the bad cops. These are the continent’s northwestern nations. They have little sympathy for the European Union’s poor and badly governed southeastern enclave. They have already used up much of their European solidarity in the previous enlargement rounds.
They want the region to become more like them – wealthy and rules-based – before it is let in.
One cannot argue against their stance because ultimately they are right in their position. These by-the-book members can be helpful in keeping aspirants in check and to their word. Without them the standards for EU membership – what makes the bloc appealing — would crumble.
The reality is that Albania and the other countries of EU’s Western Balkan enclave are not ready for membership as defined by the current union. In fact, at times, it seems they are making steps backward. But they must given a deadline by which to get things right or be told the doors are closed. An open-ended “as long as it takes” might no longer enough.
