Tuesday 19:13
EU Integrations
The Commission’s reply to A2CNN contained one sentence on corruption and organised crime in Albania. Read against SPAK’s fifteen-month enforcement record, against the standard the Commission applied to previous accession waves, and against the Commission’s own positive IBAR assessment tabled in parallel with the reply, the sentence reveals less an assessment than a reflex. Albatros …
EU Integrations
On April 9, the Albanian parliament passed an amendment to the 2007 law on tourist ports, allowing private investors who hold strategic investor status to build and operate ports without going through the concession procedures the law ordinarily requires. The EU Delegation responded today with a public statement flagging concerns about public procurement compliance and …
EU Integrations
Brussels wants a Balkan success. What it may get instead is a member state shaped by the same contradictions it chose not to confront. by Albatros Rexhaj (Tirana) The accession process is real. So are the forces riding inside it. The official story of Montenegro’s EU path is compelling in its neatness. A small …
EU Integrations
Albatros Rexhaj A technical finding is being treated as a political choice. The Interim Benchmark Assessment Report for Albania has received a positive assessment from the European Commission. The draft common position is on the table. Member states are deliberating. What is producing the delay is not the evidence. It is the weight being placed …
EU Integrations
In an assessment of Albania’s current European integration process, Foreign Minister Ferit Hoxha, who previously served as Albania’s ambassador to the EU in Brussels, says the country has entered the most advanced phase of chapter closings in its history, but stresses that member states will have the final word. “Reforms are our watchword for entering …
EU Integrations
Tirana Examiner | Analysis | Hajdi Xhixha In March 2024, the European Council greenlit accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Fourteen months later, no negotiating framework has been adopted, no intergovernmental conference has been held, and the president of Republika Srpska has publicly declared his governing objective to be the secession of his entity …
EU Integrations
How Europe talks to Serbia about reforms it never demands. by Elmi Berisha (New York) Aleksandar Vučić posted about the phone call on Instagram, as he always does after these calls. He had listened carefully to the German foreign minister’s concerns, he wrote. Serbia would work hard on reforms. Especially in the rule of …
EU Integrations
When a veteran Financial Times Europe editor endorses the Rama-Vučić proposal, the initiative graduates from regional politics into European policy debate. The harder work starts there. by the Editorial Board Tony Barber is not the first serious analyst to look at the western Balkans enlargement impasse and conclude that the Rama-Vučić single market and …
EU Integrations
Dear Commissioner Kos, A statement issued this week by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) concerning an exchange between Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania, and a journalist from Syri TV raises a question that goes beyond a single press conference. It raises a question about the evidentiary standards applied to organizations whose conclusions are …
