EU foreign policy chief warns Albania of difficult reforms in the bloc's membership path

TIRANA, Albania -- The European Union ’s foreign policy chief on Tuesday hailed Albania's “ambitious” agenda to close full membership negotiations in two years and also urged the country's political parties to support difficult reforms ahead.

Kaja Kallas, who is on a regional tour, was in the Albanian capital, Tirana, to meet with the country’s leaders and assure them that the country's future is in the bloc.

“Albania has an ambitious agenda to close EU negotiations in the next two years,” Kallas said at a joint news conference with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama. “It’s vital to sustain the high pace of reforms. And I also understand that the reforms are always quite difficult.”

Still, “Albania’s future is in the European Union,” she said.

The EU decided in 2020 it would start full membership negotiations with Albania, and talks began last October on how the country aligns with the EU’s stance on issues such as the rule of law, the functioning of democratic institutions and tackling corruption.

The Western Balkans countries — Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia — are at different stages in their applications for EU membership. They have been frustrated by the slow pace of progress, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 encouraged Europe’s leaders to push for the six to join the bloc.

“Your decision to fully implement EU sanctions against Russia alongside your political, military and humanitarian support to Ukraine demonstrates your commitment to our shared values,” said Kallas.

Rama has said he hopes to complete the negotiating process with the EU by 2027 and for Albania to become a bloc member by 2030.

“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,” Rama said.

Albania is part of the EU’s growth plan and it is expected to receive more than 920 million euros ($1 billion) over the next decade.

On Tuesday, Albania also signed with the European Investment Bank a 90 million-euro ($98 million) agreement to reconstruct the railway between the port of Durres and Rrogozhine, which Kallas said would “serve as a critical route ... between member states in NATO, for military mobility in Southeast Europe.”

“This is extremely important in the current security environment,” she said.

Albania holds parliamentary elections May 11 in which Rama's governing leftist Socialist Party has put EU membership as the goal of the governing program. The conservative opposition accuses the Socialists of corruption and being unable to take the country ahead.

Kallas earlier visited Montenegro and ends her tour with a visit to Bosnia later Tuesday.