BRUSSELS – Albania is set to open its first negotiating cluster on 15 October, multiple media outlets have reported from Brussels. Meanwhile, North Macedonia is not expected to make a step forward even though it started its accession talks at the same time as Albania in 2022.
Yesterday, the Permanent Representatives Committee (Coreper), consisting of the ambassadors of EU member states, discussed Albania’s fulfilment of opening benchmarks on Cluster 1: Fundamentals. Coreper is a body preparing decisions of the EU ministers gathered in the Council.
Albania will hold its second accession conference with EU member states in mid-October, the Bulgarian permanent representative spokesperson told the Brussels-based Euractiv. The country held its first accession conference in July 2022, together with North Macedonia, when the EU presented them with Negotiating Frameworks guiding their accession negotiations.
This means that Albania will open the negotiations on the first five chapters, which are part of Cluster 1. This includes the crucial Chapters 23 and 24, which cover the rule of law issues and determine the pace of the overall progress towards membership.
In its 2023 report on Albania, the European Commission assessed that, in both of the chapters, the country was “in between some and moderate level of preparation”, corresponding to grade 2.5 on a scale from 1 to 5.
Meanwhile, North Macedonia will not advance further. Even though this has not been officially confirmed, Bulgaria likely continued its veto policy towards North Macedonia for not implementing the 2022 French proposal on the resolution of identity issues, which includes amending the country’s Constitution.
Since taking power in June, the new VMRO-DPMNE government of North Macedonia has stated that it wanted to re-negotiate the French proposal. Analysts commented for European Western Balkans at the time that this would be unlikely.
North Macedonia has been an EU candidate country since 2005, while Albania became a candidate in 2014.