Albania has provisionally closed a fourth chapter of its European Union accession negotiations, leaving 29 of the 33 chapters still to be completed little more than a year before the deadline Tirana has set itself.
The chapter covers enterprise and industrial policy and was closed at the tenth accession conference in Luxembourg on October 13. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama took part alongside Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos and Thomas Byrne, Ireland’s minister of state for European affairs and defence, for the Irish presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Albania opened negotiations in 2022 and has since opened all 33 chapters, but it closed none of them until July this year, when science and research, education and culture and external relations were signed off. All four closures have come within the past three months.
Rama said the decision was a recognition of his Government’s reforms and of the transformation under way in the country. He told the conference that Tirana wanted “at least to double” the number of chapters closed by December.
Kos congratulated Albania on being among the candidates leading this year’s progress and said the European Commission backed the “ambitious goal” of closing everything by the end of 2027. She added that reforms would have to continue, particularly on the rule of law and the functioning of institutions, and that the opposition, civil society and voters had to be brought into the process.
What has been closed so far is modest. Science, education, external relations and industrial policy are among the lighter files in the body of EU law, while chapters 23 and 24, which cover the judiciary, fundamental rights and the fight against corruption, remain open.
Montenegro, which remains the frontrunner, closed three chapters in Luxembourg the previous day, on economic and monetary policy, statistics and social policy and employment, taking it to 21 of 33 on the same day the EU agreed to widen accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova. Byrne called the run of conferences another “Super Tuesday”.
Podgorica is aiming for membership in 2028 and Byrne has said Ireland wants all of Montenegro’s chapters closed before its presidency ends in December.
None of the closures counts as final until an overall agreement is reached on every chapter, and each step needs the unanimous backing of the 27 member states. The Commission is due to publish its annual enlargement package, setting out where each candidate stands, later this month.
