"Albania, conditioned status"

The European Commission is expected to recommend a conditioned status for Albania, as confirmed by the high rank Commission officials one day before the publishing of the progress-report, although the final decision will be taken by the College of Commissioners this Wednesday morning.

As for the candidate status, the Commission refers only to the political agreements of November, the presidential election and the minimal critical mass of results regarding the 12 key priorities. In these three elements are considered as unfulfilled: the Parliamentary Regulation Reform, the Civil Service and Supreme Court laws.

After the division of the status from the membership negotiation, the Commission aims to include the 2013 elections in the rule of law problematic area, and not only for the status.

According to the high rank Commission officials, the report for Albania is expected to be analytic, with evaluations about the priorities that have been completely fulfilled, the ones that have been essentially fulfilled and others that are not sufficiently fulfilled.

The conditions that will follow the recommendation part for the status must be fulfilled before December, when the member countries will review the Commission’s recommendation for deciding if the country deserves the EU candidate status or not.

For proposing the status, the Commission focuses on the fulfilment f the easy priorities, the laws voted in parliament and the constitutional Presidential election. The member countries are very sensible about the 2013 elections and the rule of law sector, including the fight against corruption and the crime; the judiciary independence; the independence of institutions and the respect of human rights.

Fule: The significance of this progress-report

Before official publishing of the annual enlargement strategy and the individual progress-report, the EU Commissioner for Enlargement, Stefan Fule, gave a general message for the importance of this Autumn evaluation.

“This year’s progress report is important for three things: first because it is about the legitimate aspirations of all Europeans to be part in this European endeavour. It is about enlarging the zones of security, stability and prosperity. Secondly, this year’s report is about the momentum, in a large amount. It’s about Croatia to join soon, it’s about Serbia taking the Candidate Status and start the accession negotiations with Montenegro. It’s going to be about credibility and transformative power of enlargement. And the third point, and very strong in this year’s progress report, it is going to be about the European Union strength, and going in parallel deeper with the integration, and also extending its membership. There’s no contradiction between these two”, Fule declared.