EU enlargement ‘not frozen’

Enlargement negotiations process to continue despite official stance by new commission that no new members will be admitted in the next five years, officials say.
TIRANA, Sept. 30 – A statement by incoming EU Commission President Jean- Claude Juncker that there would be no enlargement of the European Union in the next five years does not mean that the integration process has frozen, a top EU representative in Tirana said this week.
EU Delegation’s charg顤’affaires, Clive Rumbold, said the process was progressing normally and Junker’s statement simply reflected the well-known fact that no countries would be ready to join during the new commission’s five-year mandate, which starts next month.
“Has the enlargement process frozen? Should Albania stop trying? The answer is a resounding no,” Rumbold said.
Rumbold made the comments at an international conference organized by the Albanian Institute for International Studies and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, dealing with challenges Albania faces in its integration process as well as EU’s enlargement policy under the current Italian presidency.
Italian Ambassador Massimo Gaiani said EU membership for the Western Balkans is good for the region and the EU itself.
“Rather than enlargement, we prefer to call it ‘completing the unity of the continent,'” he told those attending the conference.
Albert Rakipi of AIIS said that the new leadership of EU has confirmed the European perspective of the region.
“Even the most optimistic people did not believe that membership would happen in five years,” he said. “Political elites now need to get local ownership of the process and move it forward.”
Participants at the conference said that keeping focus on fulfilling the tasks related to integration was now more important than ever, as the negotiations and meeting the remaining criteria are difficult hurdles ahead.
Frank Hantke, director at FES, said Albania’s primary focus should be to create better economic conditions and meet the minimum social conditions for EU membership.
Officials at the conference also urged Albania’s government and opposition to work together and have “one voice” when dealing with the EU.
Nonetheless, the government’s and opposition’s leading EU integration representatives at the conference did not see eye to eye in their remarks.
Integration Minister Klajda Gjosha said the government wants to work together with the opposition and do all it takes to make sure Albanian opens membership negotiations as soon as possible.
Inclusiveness and cooperation are needed for EU integration but Albanians like to place power over integration, said Majlinda Bregu, an opposition MP and a former integration minister who now heads the integration commission in parliament.
Albania’s internal problems are compounded by growing enlargement fatigue in the EU.
The future head of the EU executive, Junker, said in July that negotiations would continue, but “no further enlargement will take place over the next five years.”
The political message seemed to be that the whole process was being slowed down, according an analysis by The Economist magazine.
The statement was “controversial and populistic,” Stefan Fule, the outgoing enlargement commissioner, told the magazine, because no Balkan country would have been ready to join in the next five years.
“It was a wrong message to the western Balkans at a wrong time,” he said.
In addition to Albanian academics and political representatives, the conference featured speakers who are high representatives of the governments of the region as well as experts and academics.