Brussels – Albania is making swift progress in its EU accession negotiations—at least in terms of opening negotiating chapters. The real test, however, will be how quickly it can close them. In Tirana, the goal has become something of a mantra: to wrap up negotiations by 2027, with full membership in sight by 2030.
This ambition was underscored at the fourth Accession Conference at ministerial level, held on 14 April in Luxembourg—an event seen in both Brussels and Tirana as a clear signal of momentum. “I’m very encouraged by these developments, and we are committed to fulfilling all the duties of the ambitious calendar, to close all negotiations by 2027,” said Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama at a joint doorstep with European Council President António Costa, who confirmed that “our ambition is to open other clusters during this year.”
The fourth Accession Conference served to open nine additional negotiating chapters, bringing the total to 16 out of 33 currently under negotiation. The most recent additions fall under Cluster 2 – ‘Internal Market’ – and include Chapter 1 (free movement of goods), Chapter 2 (freedom of movement of workers), Chapter 3 (right of establishment and freedom to provide services), Chapter 4 (free movement of capital), Chapter 6 (company law), Chapter 7 (intellectual property law), Chapter 8 (competition policy), Chapter 9 (financial services), and Chapter 28 (consumer and health protection).
These follow the chapters that were opened in late 2024, along with the benchmarks for their provisional closure. On 15 October, Cluster 1 – ‘Fundamentals’ was launched, including Chapter 5 (public procurement), Chapter 18 (statistics), Chapter 23 (judiciary and fundamental rights), Chapter 24 (justice, freedom and security), and Chapter 32 (financial control). On 17 December, Cluster 6 – ‘External Relations’ was opened, covering Chapter 30 (external relations) and Chapter 31 (foreign, security and defence policy).
The state of EU-Albania relations
Albania’s application for EU membership was submitted in April 2009. EU candidate status was granted in June 2014. In April 2018, the European Commission issued a recommendation to open accession negotiations with Tirana, as Albania and North Macedonia were grouped together under the so-called ‘package approach’, meaning that either both would advance together or neither would.
In March 2020, ministers for European affairs gave their political agreement to the opening of accession negotiations with both countries. However, due to deteriorating relations between North Macedonia and Bulgaria — and with the ‘package approach’ still in place — Tirana’s path towards EU accession negotiations also stalled for a year and a half. It was only on 19 July 2022 that accession conferences took place in Brussels.
Two years later, at the COREPER (Committee of Permanent Representatives of the EU) meeting on 25 September 2024, the 27 EU Member States positively assessed Tirana’s alignment with the opening benchmarks for the first cluster of chapters. Although EU ambassadors did not formally decide to split the Tirana–Skopje dossier, advancing Albania with negotiations while leaving North Macedonia behind represents, in effect, a break from this approach for the first time since 2018.
