Accession of Albania to the European Union

Accession of Albania to the European Union
Status	Negotiating Candidate
Application European perspective 2003 Membership application 28 April 2009 Screened & negotiations commence
Negotiations Chapters closed 0
Memberships & Treaties Association Agreement Economic and monetary policy Travel Energy Foreign and military policy Human rights and international courts International Court of Justice (ICJ)
Impact (27+1) Population 446,828,803 449,845,596 0.63% Area 4,233,262 km2 1,634,472 mi2 4,264,004 km2 0.68% 1,645,572 mi2 0.68% HDI 0.896 0.891 0.22% GDP (PPP) $25.399 trillion GDP per capita (PPP) $56,928 GDP $17.818 trillion GDP per capita $39,940 Gini 30.0 31.31 0.4% Official Languages 24 Albanian 1

Politics of Albania
Constitution Human rights
Executive President: Bajram Begaj (list) Prime Minister: Edi Rama (list) Deputy Prime Minister: Belinda Balluku (list) Cabinet
Legislature Parliament Speaker: Lindita Nikolla (list) Committees Members Leader of the Opposition
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Elections Recent elections Presidential 2012 2017 2022 Parliamentary 2017 2021 next Local 2015 2019 2023 Referendums 1994 1997 1998 Political parties Parliamentary PD PS LSI PDIU FRD PR PBDNJ LIBRA
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Albania is on the current agenda for future enlargement of the European Union (EU). It applied for EU membership on 28 April 2009, and has since June 2014 been an official candidate for accession. The Council of the European Union decided in March 2020 to open accession negotiations with Albania.^[1]

However, the country did not start accession negotiations because its candidacy was linked to that of North Macedonia, which was vetoed by Bulgaria.^[2] On 24 June 2022, Bulgaria's parliament approved lifting the country's veto on opening EU accession talks with North Macedonia. On 16 July 2022, the Assembly of North Macedonia also approved the revised French proposal, allowing accession negotiations to begin.^[3] The start of negotiations was officially launched on 19 July 2022.^[4] It is one of nine current EU candidate countries, together with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine.