TIRANA, April 16 – A draft of the report underlining the progress reform of the Western Balkan six shows the European Commission will recommend opening accession negotiations for Albania and Macedonia.
The draft, published by German media, states for Albania that “further actions were taken to reinforce the independence, efficiency, and accountability of judicial institutions, particularly through advancing in the implementation of comprehensive justice reform.”
It also made positive remarks on the reform of the public administration, calling it consolidated and “with a view to enhancing its professionalism and depoliticization.”
However, the report also said that only if the reevaluation of judges and prosecutors continues to give concrete and tangible results will Albania’s progress be decisive for its membership.
The EU report, which is set to be officially published on April 17 in France’s Strasbourg, outlines how far the Western Balkan countries and Turkey have come concerning their EU membership.
Local media reported EU’s Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini will be soon visiting Tirana to hand out the progress report to the government.
Earlier mentioning 2025 as an enlargement deadline, this time the report noted Turkey had taken significant steps backwards in its European road and that Kosovo had “delivered slowly during 2017” , while for Serbia and Montenegro accession negotiations are already underway.
Albania gained candidate country status in 2014, and has been awaiting the opening of accession negotiations for the last couple of years.
