Three decades ago, Albania threw off the shackles of
one of the most closed Stalinist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe.
While the communist dictatorship was crumbling, the
dramatic footage of 1991 demonstrations showed thousands of people gathering in
the streets of Tirana chanting for Albania to become “like the rest of Europe.”
Craving freedom and economic opportunity, membership
of the European Union became the rallying cry of a nation isolated for half a century
from the western world. Political discourse and public policy in Albania came
to be framed around its EU accession bid. The country was officially identified
as a potential membership candidate at the Thessaloniki summit in June 2003
which marked its EU integration journey.
During the 2000s there was slow but tangible
progress. Albania signed the EU Stabilisation and Association Agreement in 2006,
officially submitted its application for membership in 2009 and was granted
candidate status in 2014. Since then, the process has been marred by EU and
Albania alike.
Over four consecutive years, the European Commission
– the EU’s executive arm – withheld the green light to the start of accession
talks. In March 2020, the EU enlargement standard conditionality was extended
to Albania when the bloc decided to open accession negotiations providing
Tirana made tangible progress on a number of issues prior to the first
intergovernmental conference.
But, with Albania’s bid coupled to that of North
Macedonia, Bulgaria’s refusal to endorse accession talks with Skopje blocked
Tirana too.
The situation with North Macedonia is getting more
complicated after Zaev unexpectedly
said he would resign both from his PM post and from the helm of the main ruling
Social Democrats, citing bad results at the local elections.
Veto from France in 2019 and later from Bulgaria blocked
North Macedonia's path towards the European Union — leaving Zaev's most
important promise to his voters unfulfilled and further undermining EU’s
credibility in the region.
Albania is also paying a high price for the EU’s internal
uncertainties.
The financial and migrant crises have provided
fertile ground for populist and Eurosceptic movements. Brexit and other
internal disputes diminished the appetite of the EU to take in new members to
such a degree that Jean-Claude Juncker, as president of the European
Commission, slammed on the brakes and prioritised the deepening of internal
integration and structural reform of EU governance.
The introduction of the New Enlargement Methodology
last year demonstrates that the EU is not contemplating further expansion any
time soon.
This position was confirmed by the Brdo declaration of
October this year, which mirrored the Thessaloniki Summit conclusions on the European
perspective of the Western Balkans in 2003. Nearly after two decades, the EU
enlargement to the Western Balkans appears to have gone back to its starting
point.
Blaming
the EU
Nevertheless, as far as Albania’s accession path is
concerned this is just one side of the coin. Throughout the process, Albania
has failed to keep up with the EU’s accession criteria. Deep internal political
crises, a poor record in the fight against corruption and organised crime as
well recent democratic backsliding have kept the country far from to the EU
shore.
Edi Rama, Albania’s longest serving prime minister
since the fall of communism, has walked away from EU values and flirts with
like-minded autocrats such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and
Serbian President Aleksander Vucic.
He has openly blamed the EU for his own failures. In
a recent opinion
piece, Rama accused the EU of being unable to deliver on its
promises to the Western Balkans and floated once again the idea of Open Balkan,
a controversial regional initiative to remove barriers on trade and movement
between Serbia, Albania and North Macedonia and which overlaps with the Berlin
Process.
Rama deliberately trivialises the importance of EU
integration to disguise his government’s failure to meet the EU membership
criteria. So far he has successfully managed to deflect the attention of the public
from Albania’s EU integration process and lower any expectations of accession
soon. Albania’s stagnation on the EU integration path hardly makes headlines
anymore.
In the 2000s, even small steps toward EU accession were
hailed as historic by governments and failures were meticulously scrutinised by
the opposition, media and civil society.
The European Commission’s annual progress reports on
Albania used to ignite heated debate in the media and parliament. This year, in
contrast, the Commission’s progress
report attracted little media coverage. More troubling was
the absence of scrutiny from the opposition and civil society.
In such circumstances, when Albania’s EU accession
has reached a dead end, the most productive segments of society, particularly young
people, are leaving the country for good. Joining the EU is no longer a viable
option worth waiting for.
Altin
Gjeta holds a Master of Arts in International Relations and Politics from
University of Westminster, London. He works as researcher for Albanian Centre
for Good Governance and is research associate at Albanian Institute for
International Studies.
The
opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
views of BIRN.
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