Formal application for candidate status later this month

TIRANA, April 14 – A voice has been increasing from Tirana that it will apply by the end of the month to join the European Union. The first steps of the roughly 18 month process would be discussion of candidate status.
The government of the tiny Balkan country is resisting the voices especially from Brussels that holding free and fair elections in June remains the main topic of interest and the capital should take care of this for the moment.
Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha insisted along his electoral campaign in central Albania that Prime Minister Sali Berisha would apply for candidate status to the European Union soon.
It is very likely that the last days of April are mentioned as the possible time of an application, but no date has yet been fixed. Until then the premier is on official visits to China and France.
The governing Democratic Party of the premier has clearly said that such a move would happen during a heated political campaign for the June 28 elections.
Meanwhile the governing Democrats are openly claiming that it is very likely that within this year Albanians would have the prospect of visa-free travel to the EU.
Basha promised existing visa requirements would be lifted in 12 months. Many Albanians still try to cross illegally into neighboring Greece and Italy for a better living.
Earlier this month Albania became a full NATO member, something that has always served to the other former communist countries as a jump start towards the bloc.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn has told Albania it should first make sure the quality of its parliamentary elections is above reproach before it takes the next step in its long road to EU membership.
All post-communist Albania’s elections have not met international standards.
Karel Schwarzenberg, the foreign minister of the Czech Republic which holds the EU presidency, had initially welcomed an application, but said later it was not the right time because the EU was dealing with a lot of problems of its own brought on by the financial and economic crisis.
Berisha has been insistent that adamant Albania would go on with its application within the Czech mandate until the end of June.
“The formal request for candidate status is expected to be handled to the [EU] Czech presidency possibly before the end of this month,” sources from European Parliament said last week in Brussels.
This has also been confirmed unofficially by sources of the government still speaking anonymously.
Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey are already candidate countries, while the rest of Western Balkans is classified as “Potential Candidate Countries.”