Albania rejected again. Loses the status of candidate country to EU

by Alfred Kola

BRUSSELS - For the second year in a row Albania fails to comply with the European Commission’s requirements for obtaining the status of a candidate country for membership into the European Union. Today, the Commissioner for Enlargement ,Stefan Fule, presented the European Parliament with the progress report on the performance of Balkan countries aspiring to join EU for the year 2011. The report stresses that while most countries in the region have made remarkable progress, namely Croatia, scheduled to be a EU member by the end of 2012, Macedonia and Montenegro having the green light to kick off the accession negotiations and Serbia becoming a candidate country for membership, Albania, on the other hand, made no progress this year on its course to the EU adhesion, what brought the Commission to the decision to refuse Albania the status of candidate country. Among the factors that contributed in this refusal, the report lists:

• The political deadlock and the lack of a political dialog
  • The lack of judiciary and public administration reforms
  • The events of January 21 and the irregularities in the May 8 elections
  • Insufficient commitment to fighting corruption and organized crime

The report, as it has become a habit, failed to pinpoint the culprit for Albania lagging behind in the integration process. This fact is expected to ignite another harsh political battle in the country on who is to blame for the situation, where the parties will be on each-other’s neck for political grounds. The government, as it has done for the last two years, will blame the opposition for “leaving the country out of Europe”, while releasing itself from any liability on the matter. Everybody in Albania wonders why the European Commission shares the blame equally across the whole political spectrum for issues like the war against corruption and organized crime, submission of the judiciary to the government, election rigging, poverty and unfair economic policies, soaring rate of unemployment, attacks on free media and other issues that are completely attributes and responsibility of the government.