Serbia may emerge in best light from annual review of enlargement, while political problems will cast shadow on Albania and Macedonia

by Andrew Gardner/ European Voice

Štefan Füle will next Wednesday (8 October) present his last set of annual reports on the progress – or lack of it – made by eight countries seeking membership of the European Union. The outgoing European commissioner for enlargement and neighbourhood policy will also set out the Commission’s enlargement agenda for the first year under his designated successor, Austria’s Johannes Hahn.

The reports have yet to be finalised, but Füle will be able to highlight some significant milestones that three countries have passed. Last year’s diplomatic breakthrough in relations between Serbia and Kosovo enabled Serbia to begin accession talks with the EU in January and Kosovo to take the first step towards membership, by starting negotiations on a stabilisation and association agreement (SAA) last October. Kosovo has since completed the SAA talks. Meanwhile, the EU’s member states in June agreed that Albania should be recognised as a candidate for EU membership, a status that allows Albania to start accession talks.

However, the advances in Kosovo and Albania have been undermined by domestic political problems. Four months after parliamentary elections in June, Kosovo has been unable to form a government. In Albania, hopes that the political parties’ consensus on the EU’s reform agenda might translate into a long-term improvement in parliamentary politics have been dashed, as the opposition is currently boycotting parliament. Serbia may emerge with the most positive write-up, boosted in part by the decision to allow Belgrade’s first ‘Gay Pride’ march in four years on Sunday (28 September).

Human-rights issues will loom large in the report on Turkey, but the country with most to lose is Macedonia, which the Commission has for the past six years recommended should be allowed to start accession talks. Greece has always refused to allow that, because of its decades-long dispute over Macedonia’s name, which the country shares with a Greek province. The Commission’s recommendation this year is in question in part because of a political deadlock that has blocked Macedonia’s reform agenda. The Commission, which often decides on a recommendation just days before the release of reports, may keep Skopje waiting until the last minute.

Füle will also set out the enlargement agenda for the coming year, when his post will be occupied – barring a veto from the European Parliament – by Johannes Hahn, currently the European commissioner for regional policy. In his hearing before the European Parliament on Tuesday (30 September), Hahn focused on a theme increasingly vocally expressed by Füle and his team in recent years: the need to make the economic benefits of closer integration with the EU more apparent for ordinary people in would-be member states. The idea has become more important because of the long wait likely before the EU’s next enlargement.

Hahn dwelt at length on the need to fill in the “blank spot” on the map of European infrastructure in the western Balkans. Such projects could be funded from a seven-year, €11 billion pot of pre-accession funding presented by Füle on Friday (26 September).