Albania has potential to be EU accession ‘frontrunner’ — EU ambassador

Albania has the “potential” to join Montenegro at the front of the queue of countries bidding to join the European Union, the EU ambassador to Tirana has confirmed.

“The combination of political will and administrative capacity … makes me believe Albania has all the potential to be a frontrunner,” Silvio Gonzato told reporters on Friday.

“Albania does not have a plan B,” Gonzato added. “There is a clear cross-party consensus on bringing Albania into the EU.”

His remarks come after EU ambassadors decided to move Albania to the next stage of its bid to join the bloc by holding an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) on the first so-called “cluster” of negotiating chapters on 15 October.

It will be Albania’s second IGC, the first having taken place in July 2022.

The breakthrough means Albania has cleared one of many hurdles on its path to EU accession, a notoriously long and complex process where candidate countries are required to implement a raft of economic, legislative, and sometimes constitutional reforms.

Ambassador Gonzato acknowledged that navigating Albania’s highly polarised political landscape could prove a challenge, adding that he hoped divisions along party lines in the country’s parliament would not hamper the government’s reform agenda.

Aiming high

Albania has set an ambition to be accession-ready by the end of this decade, prioritising fighting corruption and organised crime, modernising its health and education systems and aligning its foreign and security policy with that of the EU.

It has also worked hard to establish the city of Tirana as a regional centre of activity in the Western Balkans, attracting several international summits to the capital, including the European Political Community summit last December.

Tirana’s readiness to address concerns over minority rights is also believed to have played a major role in securing the EU’s unanimous backing to move forward.

In early September, the ethnic Greek mayor of a southern Albanian town, Fredi Beleri, was released from prison after being held on charges of vote-buying, allegations that were heavily contested by Athens.

Beleri, who has dual Greek and Albanian nationality, was elected to the European Parliament for Greece’s ruling centre-right Nea Demokratia party in June’s European elections.

His release is considered a pivotal moment in ensuring Athens gave the green light to open the first cluster of negotiating chapters.

The latest developments mean Albania is pulling ahead of some of its Balkan neighbours. EU ambassadors were however unable to agree this week that North Macedonia had met the necessary conditions to open the negotiating chapters.

Speaking to reporters in Tirana on Thursday, Germany’s ambassador to Albania, Karl Begner, said he hoped news of Albania’s second IGC in October would send a “signal of hope for other countries in the region … even if not everyone benefits at the same time.”