The slow pace of European integration has left many Albanians feeling disillusioned.
By Andi Balla in Tirana (Balkan Insight, 9 Feb 06)

At the end of this month, European officials will head to Tirana to give their formal blessing to the signing of a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, SAA, with Albania, the first major step towards integration with the European Union.
The head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, and EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn, will take part in a ceremony signifying the EC's approval for the deal. Final approval is to follow at an EU summit in Vienna before the end of June.

The move comes after frustrating delays that have led Albanians to blame both local politicians and the EU for making their country part of a regional economic and political "black hole".

Negotiations between Albania and Brussels started in January 2003 but stalled soon after. As one deadline after another was missed, Albania's progress towards EU membership lagged behind neighbouring Macedonia, which signed an SAA in 2001 and has now attained to candidate status.

Brussels blames the delays squarely on Albania. Officials note Tirana's poor progress in carrying out reforms and strengthening state institutions, and say officials have not done enough to fight corruption and organised crime or to encourage foreign investors.

The Europeans have also criticised the standards of elections, though the July 2005 parliamentary elections largely met EU requirements, especially as they resulted in a smooth transfer of power, which has not always been the case in post-communist Albania.

At the same time, support for EU membership has dropped recently in Albania, though it still remains dizzyingly high by European standards.

A report released in December by the Albanian Institute for International Studies, AIIS, said support for Europe within "groups well informed about the integration process" had declined from 99 per cent in 2002, to 89 per cent in 2004 and 84 per cent last year, a change of 15 per cent over three years.

Gjergji Vurmo, of AIIS, said widespread frustration among Albanians over the European integration process had become linked to the slow pace of negotiations on the SAA.

"The fact that we continue to celebrate the anniversaries of the opening of the SAA negotiations without being able to conclude them, is… a good reason for ordinary citizens' frustration," he told Balkan Insight.

Vurmo added that popular frustration was still directed against local political leaders rather than against the Europeans.

"The ruling elite cannot avoid criticism over its undertakings to effectively implement the reforms we need," he added. "They can't afford such widespread frustration, if nothing else because it is the voters' top priority at the moment."

Kleart Duraj, an Albanian television editor, said the longer the whole integration process lasted, the lower the Albanian desire to be part of the European Union would be.

"The integration process is too slow," he said. "Regardless of who is responsible for the slow pace, Albanians suffer the consequences, whether in the form of burdensome visa applications or limited development."

Elvis Plaku, a public relations officer for a Tirana bank, agreed. "Europe has been indecisive about Albania's integration in terms of the steps it has had to take just to start accession talks," he said.

"What worries me even more is the effect it's having on people as a whole," he added. "They are tired of waiting and seeing little to no progress."

The idea that the EU is helping to create a black hole in the western Balkans increasingly pops up in public discussions, as Albanians compare their life in the slow lane to Romania and Bulgaria.

Andras Inotai, director of the Institute for World Economics in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, says this perception is worrying. But he recalled that Central European countries had also found the EU integration process frustratingly slow.

"When we [Hungary] signed the SAA in 1991, Brussels told us it had nothing to do with any kind of future membership," he said. "But the political dynamism of Europe forced the EU to acknowledge the rights of these countries to become members," he added.

Britain's ambassador to Albania, Richard Jones, meanwhile, insists Albania is on the right track, as it has reached an internal consensus on the need to adopt European values on democracy, human rights and a free market economy.

However, Jones warned that many Albanians still harbour deep misconceptions about what EU membership truly implies.

"There is a need in this country to think hard about what integration actually means - it's not simply an entry ticket into a rather nice club, offering visa-free travel to the rest of Europe," he said.

"Nor it is access to free money from Brussels and the Community budget. It's a process of taking on hundreds of thousands of pages of Community law, which confers obligations and responsibilities on Albania, and, indirectly, obligations and responsibilities on Albanian citizens," he added.

Jones concluded, "To put it bluntly, there will be winners and losers from the integration process and Albanians need to understand that clearly."

The Albanian prime minister, Sali Berisha, insists most people have taken this on board. The government, he maintained, "sees the signing [of] the SAA as a great opportunity and takes seriously the implementation of reforms needed to guarantee… our progressive European future."

The integration minister, Arenca Trashani, put it more strongly, insisting that the country will do whatever it takes to succeed in its membership bid. "The integration of Albania into Euro-Atlantic structures is an absolute priority," she said.

Brussels is keen to reward such aspirations. "The door to Europe is still open to you," Rehn told Albanians in November.

But he added more cautiously, "There is no question of any country moving before it is ready, but the EU is committed to progress once the conditions are met."

Andi Balla is managing editor of Tirana Times, a weekly English-language newspaper and a Balkan Insight contributor. Balkan Insight is BIRN's internet publication.

Source: Balkan Investigative Reporting Network