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EU opens negotiations on the internal market cluster
According to the information from EU institutions, the fourth meeting of the Accession Conference with Albania at ministerial level was held on 14 of April in Luxembourg.
The European Union delegation was led by Mr Radosław Sikorski, Minister of Foreign Affairs, on behalf of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, with the participation of Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos. The Albanian delegation was led by Mr Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania.
On this occasion, polish minister Sikorski announced: “Today, we held an Intergovernmental Conference with Albania – one of the candidate countries under the Polish presidency. EU enlargement remains at the core of our priorities. This concrete progress reflects our strong commitment towards our partners in the Western Balkans, a region which is key for the stability and security of the European Union”.
“I hope that in the coming months, we will be able to host more IGCs with the candidate countries. We have an ambitious agenda for the rest of our Presidency, including Ukraine, Moldova, Montenegro and others. I am sure that in such a strategically important issue as the future shape of the EU, we will find a common denominator”, Sikorski said.
Speaking at the press conference, European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos said that Albania is really a success story of our enlargment process and that she hoped this was the first of several celebrations this year.
“My call to action is that we should celebrate every small step, which is now more important than ever, and we would like to open all negotiating clusters and also start closing chapters. So the plan is that we open all clusters and within the next year we start closing them”, she said. She added that to achieve the goal of membership for Albania in 2030, political commitments need to continue, especially in critical areas such as justice reform, judicial independence, property rights, minority issues, and freedom of expression.
According to Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania, the goal of the country is to open and then close all negotiating chapters by 2027.
“It’s really super ambitious, but we are here today to reaffirm our strong will, our firmness and our full passion to achieve this goal”, Rama said in the press conference following the meeting with Member States.
The meeting served to open negotiations with Albania on Cluster 2: Internal market. The chapters within Cluster 2 cover EU regulations on the internal market, which includes free movement of goods, services, people and capital, company law, intellectual property law, competitiveness policy, financial services and consumer and health protection. These chapters are:
- Chapter 1 – Free movement of goods,
- Chapter 2 – Freedom of movement of workers,
- Chapter 3 – Right of establishment and freedom to provide services,
- Chapter 4 – Free movement of capital,
- Chapter 6 – Company law,
- Chapter 7 – Intellectual property law,
- Chapter 8 – Competition policy,
- Chapter 9 – Financial services,
- Chapter 28 – Consumer and health protection
The Council of the EU, which is composed of the governments of 27 EU Member States, gave the green light for Albania to open these chapters and also set the benchmarks for the provisional closure of these chapters.
This follows the opening of the first cluster on ‘Fundamentals’ and of the sixth cluster on ‘External relations’ at the Accession Conferences with Albania held on 15 October and 17 December 2024, respectively.
Monitoring of progress in the alignment with and implementation of the EU acquis and relevant European standards will continue throughout the negotiations.
The Accession Conference will return to this cluster at an appropriate moment.
Comments: Following the introduction of the revised methodology for the accession negotiations in 2020, negotiating chapters are divided in six thematic clusters:
- Fundamentals
- Internal market
- Competitiveness and inclusive growth
- Green agenda and sustainable connectivity
- Resources, agriculture and cohesion
- External relations
Negotiations on the Fundamentals cluster are the first to be opened and the last to be closed, and progress under this cluster will determine the overall pace of negotiations.
If we go back to the words of Marta Kos that Albania is a success story in EU enlargement process, we will see that they are not at all without reason. Three intergovernmental conferences have already been held with the country in half an year, which is really a serious success.
The holding of the fourth intergovernmental conference exactly one month before the elections in Albania clearly shows the EU’s preferences for a future partner in Albania.
