Albania is striving to gain full EU membership by 2030 and the country's leadership has ambitious plans in this regard. This was stated by the Russian Ambassador to Albania Alexei Zaitsev, quoted by the TASS agency.
The country received the status of a candidate for EU membership in 2014, negotiations officially began in 2022, so the issue of European integration remains “a key area of Albania's foreign policy and largely determines its domestic policy“, which is a similar picture for all countries in the Western Balkans.
“According to the statements of the Albanian side, almost all clusters of the negotiation dossier are currently are open“, said Zaitsev. - The authorities have announced ambitious plans to complete the negotiation process by the end of 2027 and achieve full EU membership by 2030.
„Many citizens associate the promised membership in the European Union with hopes for an increase in living standards, better education, healthcare, etc.“, the ambassador specified.
At the same time, Zaitsev drew attention to the fact that very often the interests of the West and the candidate countries do not coincide, in this regard „the dynamics of Albania's integration into the EU will continue to be determined by Brussels, primarily by its strategic goals“.
As an example, the diplomat cited the European Commission's decision of December 2023 to launch the negotiation process on the accession of Ukraine and Moldova to EU, despite the “obvious unpreparedness of these countries and the lack of real implementation of the membership criteria“. “Against this backdrop, the delay in the negotiation process “with Albania, despite the large-scale reforms being carried out here at the request of the European Union, raises questions both among the authorities and among ordinary citizens“, he said.
“It is becoming obvious that Albania's prospects for European integration depend not so much on its efforts as on the political situation in the European Union, where internal priorities often dominate over the principle of an objective assessment of a country's readiness to join the EU“, Zaitsev said.