The Committee of Permanent Representatives of the EU Member States (Coreper) adopted the Union’s common position for the start of negotiations on the first batch of accession funds with Albania, the Hungarian Presidency of the European Union announced.
The start of these negotiations will take place on October 15, in Luxembourg, with the holding of the EU-Albania Intergovernmental Conference.
“Albania will be the first of the candidate countries to start accession negotiations according to the revised enlargement methodology, which will be a pivotal moment for this Western Balkan country,” the Hungarian presidency said in a statement.
This first batch of accession funds concerns the fundamental issues that Albania must resolve as a candidate country. This bundle includes five critical chapters:
- Judiciary and fundamental rights.
- Justice, freedom and security.
- Public procurement.
- Statistics.
- Financial control.
In view of this development, a meeting was held yesterday in Budapest between the Prime Ministers of Hungary, Viktor Orban and Albania, Edi Rama. At the meeting, the prime ministers of the two countries discussed the accession negotiations and agreed to continue strengthening their bilateral cooperation.
It is noted that last month Coreper agreed to send a joint letter of the 27 EU member states. to Albania for the start of negotiations on the first batch of accession funds, but not to North Macedonia, thus proceeding with the decoupling of the so far “pair” of the two candidate countries for joining the EU.
The government of North Macedonia has expressed its displeasure at the disconnection of the country’s European course from that of Albania and has noted that the EU is “injusticing” Skopje.
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