COELA Clears Albania’s EU Common Position Without Objection; COREPER Expected to Approve Tomorrow the Holding of the Next IGC Set for 26 May 2026

The Newsroom

The Council Working Party on Enlargement (COELA) agreed Thursday on the draft EU Common Position based on Albania’s Interim Benchmark Assessment Reports (IBARs), clearing the file without objection from any of the 27 member states. The Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) takes the dossier on Friday afternoon and is expected to approve the holding of the next Intergovernmental Conference between Albania and the European Union, set for Monday, 26 May 2026, at 19:30. The conference, at ministerial level, will formally endorse the IBARs, marking another important milestone forward in Albania’s European Union accession process. Prime Minister Edi Rama will represent Albania.

Council sources confirmed the COELA outcome to Report TV, A2 CNN, Euronews Albania, and Albanian Post in coordinated statements around midday. “The draft EU Common Position, based on IBAR, has just been approved at COELA without any further objection from member states,” the Council’s response read. European Western Balkans had reported on 19 May that the file could be adopted at COREPER as an “I-item,” meaning ambassadors would endorse it without discussion, the standard procedural marker for an uncontested file.

The Common Position governs the closing benchmarks for Cluster 1, the Fundamentals cluster, covering rule of law, judiciary, fundamental rights, democratic institutions, and public administration reform. Albania, having opened all six negotiating clusters, cannot proceed to chapter closure without member-state agreement on these benchmarks. The IBARs themselves are the European Commission’s technical assessments of whether interim benchmarks under Cluster 1 have been met; the Common Position is the political document through which the 27 member states translate that assessment into the conditions governing the closing phase.

Taulant Balla, head of the Socialist parliamentary group, announced the COELA outcome from the parliamentary courtyard before the Council’s confirmation. “We are at the closing of a week within which the EU, in respect of bureaucratic procedures, moves from the working group to the Committee of Permanent Representatives tomorrow, where in a certain way the colossal work done by many state institutions involved in this process of addressing the intermediate benchmarks is approved,” Balla said.

Chief Negotiator Majlinda Dhuka told the parliamentary Committee on European and Foreign Affairs last week that Albania has received closing benchmarks for 31 chapters and met 24 intermediate benchmarks in justice and security tied to 92 priorities. Speaking on 11 May at a press conference focused on the procurement chapter, Rama characterised the negotiation process as proceeding normally and awaiting member-state approval to move into the closing phase.

The 26 May conference will be the eighth Intergovernmental Conference since negotiations formally opened in July 2022. Sources tell Tirana Examiner that Rama, who will travel to Brussels for the conference, will hold a press conference in the Belgian capital later that day, after the IGC concludes.