Albanians and international partners must work together to improve political, economic and social conditions in Albania to speed up the country’s EU integration process.
By ANDI BALLA
The member states of the European Union have officially agreed to grant Albania EU candidate status, the next and much-awaited step in the country’s bid to join the European Union. This is good news for Albania. It is also good news for the region and the European project itself.
However, the move was also overdue, and Albanians and their international partners must work together to improve political, economic and social conditions in Albania to speed up the integration process. Enlargement in the Balkans in general, and Albania in particular, is progressing at a slower rate than many integration supporters would like to see. At best estimates at this time, full membership remains another decade away for Albania. That is a long time. The granting of the status is a great tool to keep Albanians motivated, but it won’t be enough unless the political class in the country, its society and its international partners don’t come together to take meaningful actions that bring tangible change to Albania – its rule of law, its quality of life and its image abroad.
As we have noted in previous editions, Albania should have been granted the status six months ago. Nonetheless, there were a few indications it might have been delayed beyond this summer. That did not happen, and those who support a European future for Albania are grateful. Any further delays and the EU risked losing much of its credibility in Albania and beyond on whether it was serious about further enlargement in the Balkans. Further delays would have also hurt Albania’s drive to improve itself.
That’s why it is now important that the momentum gained from obtaining the status should be used to get more quickly through the next phases of the integration process, which will come with their own challenges. Opening negotiations is next, and the negotiations themselves will be hard as well.
But beyond the technical aspects of the process, the importance of EU integration stands beyond them. EU international provides fuel and incentive to change Albania for the better. Albania does not need to change to please Europe. It needs to change to provide a better future for its people. An Albania in the EU as an equal partner will only happen when the country modernizes its society, models itself under the best European values as well as sets and obeys the rules used in the continent’s most advanced societies.
For example, it is no coincidence that just days before the status was granted police successfully managed to bring rule of law back to Lazarat, a notorious marijuana-cultivation village that was a no-go area for police and which had for more than a decade served as a reminder that rule of law can be ignored in Albania if the conditions and the price was right.
It also appears that the desire to move the EU bid forward without any potential hindrance from the past problems has brought a swift resolution out of court in the dispute between the Albanian government and the large Czech power company CEZ – reversing a privatization that went badly for all sides involved in it. It appears the solution is not a bad deal for either side – each splitting their claims in about half – and in addition to removing any potential Czech obstacles to opening negotiations with the EU in the next year, it also serves to calm the fears of large potential investors that might have had concerns about investing in Albania due to the CEZ case.
