With a target of 2030 now on the table, Albania, a candidate country since 2014, is now sprinting towards membership of the European Union. Albania’s government has set an ambitious internal goal to complete negotiations by 2027 and conclude the ratification process within three years.

“We will not rest until we step into the door of the European Union, and sit around the same table that the European Union does,” declared Prime Minister Edi Rama at a recent press conference alongside EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.

In return, Kallas, on a regional tour through the Western Balkans, praised the Albanian government’s tempo. “It’s vital to sustain the high pace of reforms,” she said. “I also understand that the reforms are always quite difficult.” However, she added, “Albania’s future is in the European Union.”

Albania was not always among the frontrunners in the race to join the EU. North Macedonia was the first country from the Western Balkans to gain candidate status, back in 2005. While North Macedonia’s progress has since stalled, it was Montenegro and Serbia that drew ahead in recent years, opening negotiations in 2012 and 2014 respectively. 

Albania was awarded candidate status in June 2014, shortly after a dramatic armed raid on the country’s so-called ‘marijuana mountain’ at Lazarat, aimed at putting to rest fears among West European EU members about it bringing a wave of drugs and crime into an expanded union. 

These worries were gradually allayed by the wide-reaching overhaul of the judiciary embarked upon by the government in Tirana, which faced down political opposition and violent protests to force through the required changes. 

The justice reform process began in 2016 with sweeping constitutional changes and culminated in the establishment of the Special Anti-Corruption Structure (SPAK) in 2019. SPAK has prosecuted a string of high-profile figures – including MPs, ministers and mayors – and has become a symbol of Albania’s institutional progress.

However, Albania’s accession progress was stalled for reasons that had nothing to do with its own performance, and were instead connected to neighbouring North Macedonia. The two countries were coupled together in the accession process, but North Macedonia was repeatedly blocked from progressing by demands imposed by its EU member neighbours, first Greece and, more recently, Bulgaria. 

This remains the case, as successive governments in Skopje have struggled to pass highly unpopular legislation demanded by Bulgaria. In the meantime, Albania has forged ahead. Its first intergovernmental conference marking the formal start of accession negotiations took place in July 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced Brussels to rethink its enlargement policy. 

Albania has already opened negotiations in the Fundamentals Cluster – the backbone of the accession process – covering the rule of law, democratic institutions and anti-corruption. In the latest development, Albania held its third accession conference with the European Union in December 2024, during which negotiations were launched on Cluster 6, on external relations, which includes Chapter 30 on external relations and Chapter 31 on foreign, security and defence policy.

Among the other countries from the Western Balkan region, Montenegro is moving steadily closer to membership, with 2028 named as an accession target date. However, Serbia has faced calls for its progress to be frozen unless it falls into line with EU foreign policy towards Russia; Belgrade has refused to join Western sanctions imposed on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine. 

Recently, Marta Kos, the newly appointed European Commissioner for Enlargement, named Albania and Montenegro (not Serbia or North Macedonia) as the two frontrunners among Western Balkan candidates, with a “realistic prospect” of completing negotiations by 2026 or 2027.

A window that could close

But while it gains on its neighbours, Albania’s EU accession talks are still seen as a race against time. As Rama warned during a high-level meeting in Tirana on April 3, “We need to step through the door that has opened for us – not just as a real opportunity, but as a current and present one. It is a door opened with the premise that, by the end of 2027, we could complete the accession negotiations, based on mutual will. But it is also a door that can close if we are not swift and focused in making full use of the time available to us. It can close – because the history of EU enlargement shows that such doors open, and they also close.”

This sense of urgency is not unfounded. The EU’s enlargement process has long been dogged by inertia and internal scepticism, with enlargement fatigue setting in after the major expansion rounds of the early 2000s. Albania has weathered multiple vetoes and delays over the years. The regional geopolitical climate, particularly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has jolted Brussels into action – but the window may not stay open for long.

Kos called in March for a fundamental reframing of the process, saying that, rather than using the term "enlargement", she prefers "unification of Europe". She also warned of new threats to Europe’s unity: "For the first time, we are witnessing a situation where the traditional process of candidate countries fulfilling conditions and then joining the EU no longer applies. External forces now actively seek to block certain nations from accession – something unprecedented in past expansions.” 

Elections approaching 

Albania enjoys the highest public support for EU accession in the region – 77%, compared with a regional average of 54%, according to a December 2024 report by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). It has aligned 100% with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy and has been unwavering in its support for Ukraine.

However, with parliamentary elections set for May 11, Albania’s political climate is increasingly tense. The opposition accuses Rama’s Socialist Party – in power since 2013 – of leveraging SPAK to target rivals while failing to deliver systemic change. Meanwhile, the main opposition Democratic Party has been torn apart by internal conflicts and its leader, Sali Berisha, is blacklisted by the US. 

According to ECFR analysts, “The disquiet risks heavily impacting the pace and quality of Albania’s EU accession negotiations. In this critical phase, it is vital that Albania secures the independence of the judiciary and SPAK in order for these institutions to independently address high-level corruption.”

The ECFR report argues that Albania “could become another success story – alongside Montenegro – in the bloc’s latest enlargement wave,” but only if political will is sustained on both sides. Albania is having its moment in the race for EU accession. But while the door to the EU may be open for Albania at present, there are fears in Tirana that it won’t remain so indefinitely.