EU grants candidate status to Albania

The Twenty-eight members states have agreed unanimously Tuesday to grant Albania candidate status for membership of the European Union (EU). From this point, the Balkan republic start accession negotiations that could last several years, given the European intention not to continue increasing the payroll of Member States, and will have to burn several stages before joining the Union. With a per capita income of $ 4,000, Albania is one of the poorest in the area and has serious deficiencies in the control of organized crime and corruption.

Although in recent months Albania has shown improvement in indicators and integrity of its government, the three most powerful EU countries – Germany, France and the United Kingdom have long expressed reservations about the inclusion of the small Balkan republic in the bouquet the European Commission States rush deadlines in the complex process of accession to the EU club. In the final stretch of negotiations, the governments of Czech Republic, Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain have also delved into the reluctance of their potential integration.

Beyond the fight against organized crime and corruption, the EU executive Albanian authorities requires the implementation of a comprehensive reform of the public administration and the courts, whose independence is questioned and arouses serious misgivings in Brussels and ensure the protection of human rights through the implementation of anti-discrimination policies with minorities. The EU also reiterated Tuesday that Albania should intensify its fight against money laundering and trafficking in human beings and drugs and has urged its government to reduce migratory pressure on the EU to new measures to reduce claims “baseless” asylum.

After the step taken today by the Foreign Ministers of the 28 Member States, Albania leaves the group of potential candidates, which contained with Kosovo and Bosnia – Herzegovina to become part of the list of candidate countries for entry into EU, which share status with Macedonia, Iceland, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. Both groups of countries receiving financial assistance from the EU to adapt to the requirements imposed by Brussels to access the EU but only the formal candidates have access to the games of rural, regional development and human resources. In 2013, Albania received 95.3 million euros in pre-accession aid.

NATO member since 2008, Albania, like other neighboring countries, failed in their hasty adoption of capitalism, which relegated its citizens to the last places on the European continent in human development rankings. The unanimous decision made today by the 28 Member States allow the Albanians look in the mirror of the Balkan also Croatia and Slovenia, EU members since 2004 and 2013 respectively.

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Posted by Maleeha Tareen on Jun 26 2014. Filed under World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.