The German Parliamentary Groups of the CDU/CSU and SPD coalition have formulated their stance for starting the EU accession negotiations with Albania. They support the negotiations, but with a series of conditions.
The German Chancellor will inform the Parliament this Thursday, in which they will present a draft-resolution for Albania.
“Germany and the EU have special interest for stabilizing the good-neighbouring relations in the region. The implementation of the judiciary reform has started and the Vetting Law is giving concrete results. If the procedure is implemented successfully, Albania would be giving a great example for the other countries. A special attention will be given to the building of the authority that will fight corruption and organized crime, the Special Prosecution Against Corruption.
On the same time, the Bundestag verifies that despite the success, there is still a lot of deficit. The draft-resolution reminds that more than half of the priority cases of the judiciary should have passed the vetting process by mid-2018.
Corruption in the judiciary system is still a problem, and there has been significant progress in the fight against cannabis trade and cultivation, according to the German Parliament.
The draft resolution notes that irregularities in the public administration continue. The envoy for observing the civil service in Albania has noted that 30% of the people hired in the public administration have been illegal.
The German Parliament also sees as necessary the implementation of the OSCE/ODHIR recommendations, and the recommendations of the Venice Commission in 2013 and 2015 for the electoral reform, even if it is not part of the EU requests.
In these conditions, the German Parliament decides that the EU must start the negotiations with Albania, but with clearly formulated conditions.
a) The first conference for the negotiations with Albania should be made only if, by then, Albania has fulfilled these conditions:
– Vetting of 57 Judges and Prosecutors and removing those with negative results
– if the Albanian government has an electoral reform
b) the second accession conference will be held only if the Council has verified that these other conditions are met:
-implementation of the electoral reform
-prosecution of prosecutors and judges found with criminal violations
– establishing of the Special Prosecution Against Corruption
-increasing efforts to guarantee the functionality of the Constitutional Court, Supreme Court and SPAC by equipping them with a sufficient number of vetted judges and prosecutors
-seeing solid progress in the fight against criminality and corruption on all levels, including high-level officials and politicians, including pro-active investigations regarding corruption and organized crime
-tangible results in the public administration reform, including the verification of high-level civilian officials and directors
-continuing the fight against the cultivation and trafficking of cannabis
The German draft-resolution also specifies that if after the opening of negotiations Albania decides to interrupt or roll back the obligations, the negotiations should be interrupted.
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