The EU candidate status
10/05/2012 19:55
Albanian sign language branch is opened for the first time at the Faculty of Foreign Languages 05/10 21:12
The unanimous stance of the European Union member countries does not
count only for Albania, but also for the European Commission, which will
plan the next progress report by taking in consideration their “humor”
or sensibility, since regardless what the Commission will recommend, the
member countries will be the one to decide if the EU candidate status
will be given or not.
The EU conclusions, which, since the publication of the opinion of autumn 2010 are the basis of this position, by reminding the fact that none of the criteria was fulfilled by Albania one year ago.
“The European Union notes that the Progress Report of the Commission in 2011 reached the conclusion that Albania has had limited progress in fulfilling the political criteria. There has been progress in the war against organized crime, improvement in the training of detainees and the rights of children, but the progress remained insufficient as regards the judicial system, the anti-corruption policies, property rights and the improvement of the life qualities for the Roma community, without mentioning the work that is needed for the Parliamentary regulation and the elections. EU reached the conclusion that Albania needs to make constant efforts and reach visible progress in all these matters, before the Commission can recommend the candidate status and opening the EU membership negotiations”.
Even with the positive changes that appeared only after the political agreement of November 2011, with the voting os some qualified majority laws and the starts of the electoral and parliamentary reforms, the member countries remain skeptical. According to the initial engagement, these reforms should have been closed within April, which in this document is reflected with the expectancy for concrete results and within the deadlines.
“EU welcomes the establishment of a Parliamentary Commission for the electoral reform with a wide inter-partial representation, and underlines the need to achieve concrete results in time”, says the EU document.
In a 25 pages long document, the word “implementation” is mentioned 34 times, followed by “steps, measures and concrete results”, or “tracks of evidence”, which Albania needs to prove in the 12 key priorities for increasing the EU candidate status chances.
Albania is also facing other sensible specifics of the member countries, such as the border agreement with Greece, which has been suspended, or the respect of the human rights, which has been closely observed by Netherland.
The voting of some laws, the electoral and parliamentary reform, the election of a consensual president or the 100th anniversary of independence, are not enough for turning this year into the year of EU integration for Albania.
Diplomatic sources in Brussels confirmed for Top Channel that countries like Netherlands, Denmark, Austria and Germany are looking for concrete results, especially for the independence of the judicial system and the anti-corruption war.
Top Channel
