Road to EU still open

TIRANA, July 5 – While the “The Eurozone is falling apart”, “Europe is moving in two speeds” and many words heard all over the continent recently, the road for Albania toward membership into the bloc is still open.
That was made clear from the EU’s Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele and also earlier this week by the EC’s Ambassador to Tirana Ettore Sequi.
Last week neighboring Montenegro started official negotiations talks with the EU.
Albania is a step back compared to Montenegro as it has applied for the candidate status three years ago. It got two negative responses in the previous years and this time no good prospects are ahead, all because of the country’s politics and its politicians.
Brussels has always said that the EU integration process for the countries from theWestern Balkansis on track. But that depends on each country fulfilling the criteria, the requirements to get into the western bloc.
Montenegro is following the path ofCroatia, which exactly in a year will officially become the 28th member state. Next in the pipeline is Serbia which this year received a candidate status. Albania is also queuing to get such status, while Bosnia and Herzegovina is anticipated to apply for membership by the end of the year.
Brussels has made it clear to Tirana that it should comply with 12 key priorities it has said on the country. The main one remains the political cooperation in the country’s reforms that should cover justice, fight against organized crime and corruption and all the economic and financial criteria.
But this time it is also clear that Europe is very strict and harsh on the new members as no one in the EU wants to see the story of Bulgaria and Romania taking place again, as both countries have beencriticizedfor failing to completely reform these areas over and over again in the last five years, since they have become full members of the bloc.
The organized crime and the corruption are pointed out as a major problem for Albania as well, like that for its neighbors.
Therefore, “the stick”, which the EU is warning it would use again, will most probably help Albania in the fight against corruption and organized crime.
There is still time for positive recommendations, said Sequi on Wednesday, adding that it is totally in the hands of the Albanian politicians to achieve that and that means concrete work on the 12 key priorities.
And that time seems to be only the remaining days this month, when the parliament session still continues and the working group in the EU is preparing the report for next autumn.
And basically Albania’s work should focus on the electoral reform, the parliamentary one and also lifting of the immunities.
They are the country’s focus of work in the heated days of July.
Free and fair elections provide any modern democratic society with fundamental legitimacy as.
Voters are able to freely express their political will as to who should represent them and approve legislation and hold the government of the day to account. That is an ‘advise’, counsel or call it what you want that the international community has given to Albania in the last two decades.
Unfortunately elections in this country have never been in full compliance with the international western democratic standards.
Investment in holding free and fair elections is also an investment in a country’s political stability and social peace.
The Council of Europe, through the Venice Commission, and the OSCE/ODIHR have given their advice on how to improve the electoral law. It is in the hands of the Albanian lawmakers of the two main political parties _ governing Democrats and main opposition Socialists _ to take them to the end.
But they seem to oppose each other mainly on the make-up of the Central Election Commission, the vote count and other minor procedures in the process.
They have time for three more weeks or they all should come out and ask pardon to the country’s population for not being able to take them towards Europe, as they say and alleyways insist.
OSCE Ambassador Eugen Wollfarth said recently that “It is important to say that major work has been carried out so far by the Albanian Assembly. The finishing line is in reach – but only for those with political will. However, any finally agreed reform should seek the widest political consensus possible and should be able to last the test of time. A successful outcome of the reform needs to be followed by the full and honest implementation of a new electoral law, would make a tangible contribution to Albania’s ongoing reform agenda and also its long term international aspirations.”
That means that political leaders need to swiftly come to an agreement based on a high quality product covering all the OSCE/ODIHR recommendations. And to accomplish this task requires political leaders to cast aside partisan self-interest, to put their country first and to honor the trust placed in them by the Albanian citizens.
Work may be easier for the parliamentary reform but not so much for the lifting of the immunities.
Both main parties and their leaders insist they are ready to lift the immunity. But one may ask why they have failed to do that until now. Why they have alleyways preferred to make or put different interpretations to the laws that have been passed partially covering lifting of the immunity, which have always resulted in failure.
In another move, Philip Reeker, deputy assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, said in a recent interview to the VOA Albanian Service that the window of opportunity is rapidly closing as the European Commission will soon start preparing a new assessment on Tirana’s readiness to start European Union accession talks.
“They’ve lost some time, but they need to focus on important recommendations. There are 12 key recommendations that the European Union provided over a year ago. It is time to work on that because the window is rapidly closing. The European commission will soon set to work on its annual report נthe status report נand so there is an opportunity now to make some real progress, particularly in three key areas: parliamentary reform, electoral reform and lifting of immunities.”
Reeker said that the reforms are needed as soon as possible, ideally before the August recess.
The European Union demands that the Balkan country improve its economy, end long-standing political factionalism and fight organized crime and corruption before it can become a candidate for membership of the 27-nation bloc.