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Vienna Institute: Partial EU membership scenario for Albania

2026-01-28 07:33:00, Aktualitet CNA

Montenegro and Albania are the first in line for EU membership among all candidate countries. The admission of these countries is a realistic prospect and not the result of EU favoritism, a forum held by the Vienna International Institute for Economic Studies (wiiw) analyzed these days.

Participants noted that despite its favorable position, Albania has a worrying concentration of power and Serbian President Vu?i? could still create instability in Montenegro, so a scenario of partial EU membership is more likely in the next three years.

According to this scenario, partial membership means that a candidate country enters the economic and institutional union of the European Union, without yet being a member with full political (voting) rights.

Under this scenario, Albania will have access to the EU's internal market, be included in its economic policies, receive development funds and implement European legislation, while it will not have voting rights in the EU Council, will not have a European Commissioner and will not have full representation in the European Parliament.

According to this scenario, Montenegro and Albania will be within the EU in economic and regulatory terms within the next three years, but for many more years they cannot be political members of the Union.

This model, according to Vienna analysts, aims to overcome the current paradox of enlargement, where candidate countries are required to implement a very large part of EU rules, but for years do not benefit economically from this process.

With this form of membership, Albanian companies will have real access to the European common market, without tariffs and without non-tariff barriers, so that foreign investors treat the country as part of the EU economic space and so that the Albanian economy is directly integrated into Europe's production and service chains.

At the same time, Albania could receive much larger funds than it receives today through pre-accession instruments, benefiting from structural, agricultural and infrastructure funds that are currently reserved only for member states.

From the European Union's perspective, this is seen as a way to stabilize the Western Balkans, to connect it strongly to the European economy, and to reduce the influence of other geopolitical actors, without having to immediately make sensitive political decisions about full membership.

From the candidate countries' perspective, partial membership is seen as a way to avoid wasting another decade waiting, while populations emigrate and economies remain isolated from the world's largest market.

For the movement of people, partial EU membership means that citizens of a country like Albania would have more rights to work, study and reside in EU countries, but not without restrictions. The model the EU is discussing is similar to what Norway or Switzerland have today in some areas, but more limited.

Vienna analysts claimed that the Western Balkans have been waiting in line for a long time, noting that the gains from EU economic convergence have been quite small. Moreover, strict fiscal policies in the region limit maneuvers.

Unlike Ukraine, the Western Balkans have been quite good at attracting foreign direct investment and their overall outlook is positive, with a fairly stable macroeconomic situation. The most problematic issue here is the lack of competitiveness, coupled with an urgent need for a better industrial policy./ Monitor.al