Albania’s Foreign Minister: EU Accession Process Is on Track, No Country Has Blocked It

the Newsroom 

Albania’s Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Ferit Hoxha, said Monday that the country’s EU accession negotiations are proceeding normally and that no member state has blocked or slowed the process, pushing back against reporting that a group of nine EU countries has been holding up progress on a key assessment document.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Euronews Albania, Hoxha said Albania is the first and only country negotiating under the EU’s new accession methodology, and that the complexity of that framework accounts for the pace of proceedings. He added that the European Commission, which has accepted Albania’s progress as sufficient, speaks on Tirana’s behalf in the relevant discussions.

“I tell you with full and indisputable conviction that the process has not been blocked and has not been slowed,” Hoxha said. “But if we want to be honest about the process, we need to understand its nature.”

At the center of the dispute is the IBAR, an interim benchmarking assessment report for Cluster 1, covering fundamental reforms including rule of law, which must receive consensus approval from EU member states before Albania can move to the chapter-closing phase of negotiations. The European Commission has given a positive assessment, but the Council working group on enlargement, known as COELA, has held repeated sessions on the matter without reaching agreement.

Hoxha said 92 benchmarks have been filled and that the Commission’s endorsement of Albania’s trajectory constitutes recognition that the country is on an irreversible path forward. He argued that once the Commission confirms the benchmarks have been met to a sufficient standard, the green light for the next phase follows as a matter of process.

“Those nine, or however many there have been, are countries that ask questions, ask additional questions, and have not blocked anything,” Hoxha said, challenging journalists to find any of those countries willing to state publicly that they had blocked Albania. “Go find them, go ask them whether they have blocked us or not, and get your answer.”

On Greece, Hoxha described bilateral relations as the best they have been in thirty-five years, and made an explicit acknowledgment of Athens’ leverage within the process. “If Greece did not want it, not a single chapter would open,” he said, adding that Greece has instead been among Albania’s active supporters in the negotiations. He said Tirana is working to ensure that Greece’s Council presidency in the second half of 2027 becomes a success for both countries.

Albanian Post reported Monday morning that COELA is scheduled to meet again on April 7 to take up the IBAR question, with a further session set for April 9.