BRUSSELS – The eighth EU-Albania Accession Conference will be held on 26 May to confirm Albania’s fulfilment of the interim benchmarks and to set closing benchmarks for Cluster 1 ‘Fundamentals’, the Council announced today. This means that Albania will be able to begin closing negotiating chapters with the EU.
The announcement follows today’s meeting of ambassadors of EU member states (COREPER), who approved the EU’s Common Position on Chapters 23 and 24 in accession negotiations with Albania.
Albania is expected to become the second EU candidate country, after Montenegro, to reach this stage of the accession process. Under the revised accession methodology accepted by Albania in February 2020, no negotiating chapter can be closed until the country fulfils the interim benchmarks for Cluster 1.
Reacting to the decision by COREPER, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama wrote on Facebook today that the Albania-EU Conference on 26 May in Brussels “successfully seals the introductory phase and opens the concluding phase of the accession negotiations”.
“This is another day of pride for Albania, for our great team, for all its departments in every part of the field of public responsibilities, for the parliamentary majority, for the government, for the independent institutions, and of course for those who represent them at the negotiating table for Albania 2030 in the EU. Congratulations to everyone and above all, thank you to every Albanian who trusts and supports us on the path of this historic mission”, Rama wrote in a Facebook post.
In addition, he criticized Albanian opposition parties, who took to the streets in recent months.
“They said the negotiations were blocked. They said Albania was punished. They said Europe woke up and the drug regime was exposed. They took to the streets with Molotov cocktails, to burn Albania in the eyes of foreigners… They lost again. And Albania won again”, Rama remarked.
